Re: Tracking your RSS subscribers

Bill,

Thanks for the info.  So the idea is to be inquisitive
but not to be a nosey bugger!

jAn


--- Bill Kearney <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> > Does anyone know a way to track your feed
> subscribers.  How many
> > subscriptions, how often they look at it etc.
> 
> There are several ways to do it.  None are "active"
> in that they're designed
> and exactly accurate.  But they're a reasonably good
> way to gauge use of a
> feed.
> 
> When publishing a feed make sure the links you use
> are something you can
> track in your logs as having been used in the RSS
> feeds.
> 
> Don't just use:
> http://example.com/pages/1.html
> 
> Use some that's trackable:
>
http://example.com/rss.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fpages%2F1.html
> 
> The cgi could be customized further based on
> available CPU and tracking
> needs.  Note that systems like Moreover have been
> doing this for ages.
> 
> Have that cgi program log the request and then
> redirect to the destination
> page.  This will tell you the time of use, the
> source IP and, perhaps most
> importantly, what source feed item drew them to that
> landing page.  The
> latter is perhaps the most telling bit of
> information.  Here you have the
> chance to see just how many readers of the feed were
> driven back to your
> site based on the individual item content (title &
> description).
> 
> There's also the old "web bug" idea of using an
> embedded gif image in the
> content.  Many reader programs strip out or don't
> display images so it's not
> usually a method I recommend.
> 
> As for client-side tracking, actually knowing what
> they read locally without
> visiting a web site, there is no reliable method. 
> Nor should there be.  The
> users have resisted the notion of this QUITE
> strongly and for good reason.
> If something's compelling enough that people act on
> it and follow links
> that's informative enough.  To think there's value
> in further invasion of
> their privacies is arrogant, at best.  I'm sure
> others don't view it quite
> the same way but fundamentally it's really none of
> our business.  If we
> can't draw them to read a website or to share links
> to them with others then
> we're not making content that interests them.  No
> amount of abusing their
> privacy will change that.
> 
> -Bill Kearney
> Syndic8.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
>     [email protected]
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 



		
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