How do I find out how many people have subscribed to my website feed?

**amonta** · Oct 28, 2009 15:48

Hi,

I have a very new Wordpress blog, and the theme I'm using has a built-in feed, which is convenient and I'm reluctant to change it... never done it before.

Looking at my awstats, the section where it lists "Viewed > Full List", I believe quite a few people have subscribed to the feed.

How do I find out the exact number of subscribers to the feed?

I read somewhere that Wordpress no longer provide that information. But is there a WP plugin that does the job? I can't find anything.

Thanks.

**Dan Grossman** · Oct 28, 2009 16:28

Sign up with FeedBurner, and use the FeedBurner plugin to redirect requests for your current feed URL to the FB URL. They will track requests to the feed to tell you the subscriber count.

**amonta** · Oct 28, 2009 16:39

Thanks...

**avilbeckford** · Oct 28, 2009 17:08

I use Feedburner and it tells me how many subscribers I have. Avil Beckford

**tariq1654** · Oct 29, 2009 12:23

Use a wordpress widget on your blog that instantly publish how many subscribers you do have.

**amonta** · Oct 29, 2009 13:09

I'm considering Feedburner but I don't want to change until I'm absolutely sure. I got a few subscribers and I don't want to lose them because they can't be bothered switching over.

The feed I use was already installed in the theme I use, and it works fine. Only problem is I don't know how/where to find the statistics.

I can guess how many have subscribed by looking at awstats.

Where exactly in Wordpress does it show feed stats for the built-in feed?

**the_master** · Oct 29, 2009 14:02

hmmm... wasn't there a plugin for WP that tracks feed "traffic"?

**amonta** · Oct 29, 2009 14:22

I think the problem is this is not a widget – if it was it would have those stat features, and I'd be able to find them... most things in Wordpress are easy to find... No, this feed is actually installed into, and is part of, the theme itself. Maybe I could contact the people who designed the theme...

Thanks for your replies.

**Dan Grossman** · Oct 29, 2009 17:57

The feed is not part of your theme, it is a built-in feature of WordPress. The theme is just linking to it.

WordPress does not have any kind of built-in feed stats. Looking at Awstats and guessing will not tell you your subscriber count either. You'll see lots of hits corresponding to single readers pinging every 15/30/etc minutes. You'll also only see major services like Google making a few requests a day even if there are millions of people subscribed to your blog using their readers. The site doesn't need to ping you for each user, it only needs to keep one copy of your feed updated.

Switching to FeedBurner will not hurt anything, and you won't lose any subscribers. The FeedBurner feed is an exact mirror of your current feed, it will have the exact same content in it. The FeedBurner plugin for WordPress will redirect any requests for your current feed URL to the FeedBurner URL -- the subscriber will have no idea and see no change, but you'll get your feed stats after a few days.

**amonta** · Oct 29, 2009 18:20

Thanks Dan... I think I'll follow your advice. Not having set up a feed before, this makes me nervous, but will let you know I get on...

**amonta** · Oct 29, 2009 18:41

OK. I've set up the feed using Feedburner. Now, I wanted to change the text, where it has a default google/feedburner line...

"A message from this feed's publisher:"

But I can't find the place to add this message. I was wondering if you knew...? Is it back in Wordpress? I can't see it in the Feedburner dashboard/control panel/area... I'll check.

As for the stats, I'll know in a few days, like you said. I'll also check to see how my own subscription to the site is affected, if at all.

I have a question:

When I click on the Feedburner area to see my feed, it shows me this page...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/technologynews/EoFP

But when I click on the little feed button at the top-right of my website to look at the feed page, it shows me this page...

http://technologynews.eu/feed/

Is it possible that my feel is not compatible with Feedburner...?

**Dan Grossman** · Oct 29, 2009 18:45

Everything is exactly as it should be.

FeedBurner detects that you accessed the feed with a web browser, instead of a feed reader, and serves you a human-readable page instead of raw XML.

As you can see, the content of your feed is on that page, because FB downloaded your feed and is mirroring it.

**amonta** · Oct 29, 2009 18:52

Ah, I think I understand... so it "mirrors" the feed..? I don't understand how would it know if people subscribe? And other stuff? Sounds good though...

Anyway, the feedburner page seems more attractive than my feed page, which I've just learned is an XML page...? I wanted people to see the jazzed up one that I see through Feedreader instead... but actually, on second thoughts, maybe the simple XML page is what people prefer...

Thanks again...

**Dan Grossman** · Oct 29, 2009 18:58

RSS feeds are meant to be read by software, not by humans. Nobody "prefers" to read raw XML

Figuring out the subscriber count is a complicated task, which is why there's no "feed stats" built into WP. It's a combination of tracking IP addresses that ping the feed URL, their user agents, hints provided by the pinging agent (Google Reader will include the # of subscribers it is representing when it pings the feed), etc.