Back in july, we came across a service called Buy Blog Comments. After that, its now time for paying for your RSS Subscriber count. A new service called RSSXplosion(.com) lets you “Buy” RSS Subscribers. These “bought” subscribers just subscribe to your feed, they don’t read it. Why ? Because they don’t exist.
I read about this site on Ian Fernando’s blog. Something that caught my eye was that they have used my quote (from this post) about RSS Subscribers. Though i hate the service, i feel prestigious to have been quoted along with Mark from 45n5 and John Chow(:D).
There are some reasons why one would not use RSSXplosion :
- If you are so much interested in raising feedcount, you can sign up yourself with many feed readers or many accounts with a single reader and subscribe to your blog’d feed from each of them.
- A common way of faking the RSS Count is to use someone else Chicklet, but linking to your own feed. This is often found out. So, instead you can display someone else’s feedcount in plain text. (though i’m displaying in plain text, i’m not faking it. you can check out my chicklet here.)
- If you feel that the above method is difficult, you can just put some Big number in plain text and link it to their feed. Like DeafMusician(.com) which claims to have 6.24 Billion RSS subscribers. The screenshot (in case it is removed) :
- It hurts your reputation once people come to know that you have bought subscribers. RX isdefinitely not going to be profitable. So, if they close down, you’ll lose all your”bought” subscribers. Better to stay away.
And coming back to this quoting stuff, though the owner of RX has got the rights to use quotes with appropriate credits, what Ian Fernando says is right :
The owner of RSSXplosion is using popular authors and bloggers to associate with this pathetic service.
What do you say ? Would you buy RSS subscribers if your count is low, or you’d better be honest to your readers ?
UPDATE: Don’t ever bother to visit the two non-linked websites. RX is useless. DeafMusician does all sort of childish things like the faking feed count, using images without credits, disobeying copyrights etc…
Given the two choices, I’d rather be honest but there’s another alternative – don’t advertise a low feed. That way you don’t have to worry about it being used as a potentially unfair indicator of your site content.
And then there’s the question as to the true value of an RSS subscriber. While it’s not a new question it seems the only message we hear from the SEO crowd is that you must increase your subscriber count. Meanwhile, Skelliewag.org challenges how we think of subscribers in Are Subscribers Over-rated – a very interesting read.
I’m not sure that readers are so valuable. It’s nice to know how strong your following is – for your ego – but if you’re running a blog for monetization (and I think these are the only types that would consider buying readers) then they have little bearing. Your readers know your site and come for the content. They would rarely, if ever, click on an ad or buy a product. Just some observations I’ve made; monetization will come from organic traffic.
Services like this do just one favor to us bloggers. Give a good reason for others to talk about us – in such a way that we don’t like it.
It can also mean we need to pull the Feedburner chicklet out of the visible areas and stop talking about the RSS readers we have.
It will even estrange the most friendly advertisors, as they begin doubting the figures.
I’m not sure that readers are so valuable. It’s nice to know how strong your following is – for your ego – but if you’re running a blog for monetization (and I think these are the only types that would consider buying readers) then they have little bearing. Your readers know your site and come for the content. They would rarely, if ever, click on an ad or buy a product. Just some observations I’ve made; monetization will come from organic traffic.
there is no value i getting subscribers with money and u may loose them in any time.Good content and user friendly blogs will only remain in the top.
I would not pay money for it because it is artificial. High quality content will increase the RSS readers numbers naturally by time. Whitehat SEO wins in the long run.
Why do everyone want to boast about their feedranking without having good content.There is no point in buying readers.
no I would not
I would not pay for an RSS feed, ever
I think paying for an RSS subscriber is the stupidest thing you could possibly do. Well there are worse things but this is top 10
I wouldnt pay for RSS feed, no point when you can get them for free
I am seaching for some idea to write in my blog… somehow come to your blog. best of luck. Eugene
I wouldnt pay for RSS feed, unless of course they make it so you have to
Maybe i will pay, it’s kind of investment
Depends, if they have a better effect on your SEO then I would consider it, depends how much a difference it would be from fee RSS to paying
Has anyone paid for RSS feeds yet?
Do RSS feeds have any effect anyway, I have not seen the evidence of this?
I think maybe I would pay
I read in an article the other day that are making it so you have to pay for all rss feeds, give it 6 months :-s
I would not pay for subscribers because they aren’t genuine and wouldn’t provide any feedback or quality referalls.
i would not to pay to the ne rss subscribers,i will be have more effect ways to do it
I would never buy readers…
Anyway I think that service has closed down.
Klasik oyun sitelerinden fark?m?z siz ziyaretçilerimize oyun platformunda yer alm?? en yeni oyunlar? en h?zl? bir ?ekilde sunaca??m?zd?r. Sürekli güncellecek olan oyun repertuar?m?zda muhakkak çiçe?i burnunda yeni oyunlarla bolca vakit geçireceksiniz.
I know some web designers that buy stuff like that. I don’t like it… but I do say what a great idea.