©Feed

What this plugin does is, it actually extends your feed. Means that, it add things like Related Posts, Digital Fingerprint, IP of the Feed reader etc. to the bottom of your RSS Feed. Now, why is this plugin important ? Mainly because, you can add a digital fingerprint to your feed. It is nothing but an unique key. You can later search for the fingerprint on Google or CopyScape to find blogs that scrape your content with plugins like wp-o-matic and such. Take a look at the plugin in action, on my feed :

Also, it adds a list of Related posts to your feed, which is really useful. Because, most of the subscribers just subscribe to your blog based on your most recent posts. They’ll not know about the great content that you took pains to create, in the past. So, do some justice to those content by giving them a second life :)

But, as you can see here, my Feed Burner chicklet is showing the correct count. So, what might be the problem ? Have you suffered from a similar problem ? What am I to do now ?

UPDATE : The problem was solved automatically now…

1) Problems in your Feed

Your feed may not always work as you’d want it to be. Errors can occur without your knowledge and you’d definitely want to know about it before your readers do. It is a good practice to check your post in a feed reader after posting.

2) Email Subscriptions

Again if you offer Email Subscription options for your feed, problems can occur with it too. There can be issues with mail delivery or display of content. In order to be aware of all these, you need to remain subscribed to your feed via Email too.

3) What you see is not What others see

This is a common problem with feeds and feed readers. The format in which your post is displayed on your blog is never the same as how it is displayed in feed readers. For this reason, people suggest not to use CSS Classes within posts, as they work only on your blog. I’ll make a detailed post on this later.

4) Boost Your Feedcount

The feed subscriber count has become an important metric in the blogosphere. By subscribing to your own feed, you can easily increase your subscriber count without paying for it. (note : this method is illegal.. i don’t encourage doing this.. i’ve included this point here just to increase the post length :P )

Okay, now which reader should i use ?

That entirely depends on you and your audience. If you have time, you can do it with all the possible readers that you find. But, avoid this as this would increase the feed count fakely by a large number. My suggestion is that if you use Feedburner to manage your feed, login to your account and check which reader your subscribers most use. Then, subscribe using the top two. That would be enough. And if you provide email subscriptions, subscribe using that too.

I subscribe to my own feed using Google Reader and an Email Subscription. Do you subscribe to your own feeds ? If so, using which readers ?

Above The Header

This refers to the top most position of your blog. When your page loads, this is the area that loads first. Also, it is very much visible and suitable for throwing up your Subscriber count as well…

In The Header

The header is the most prominent area of your blog and also the most attractive, in most cases. Your RSS Icon will be noticed quickly if placed in the header…

SideBar

Almost every blog has a RSS Icon located on the sidebar. Many blogs even have an Email Subscription box on the sidebar. It is the place where many visitors look out for a Feed Icon…

Footer

After viewing a post or a page, a visitor normally ends up at the footer of your website. So, its useful to place a link to your RSS Feed over there…

After A Post

This is one of the most effective positions. When visitors see a “Subscribe” link right after they finish reading a post, they may be effectively converted into loyal readers. Many blogs have begun to implement such links…

Before A Post

Actually you can place RSS links above or below a post using the What Would Seth Godin Do plugin. I’m going to do a little experiment with this place, by showing a Subscribe link only to visitors from search engine. I’ll do a write up on it later…

Here on GotChance, I have Subscribe links on the header, sidebar, after the post and also in the a footer (which is less prominent). As a said above, I’m planning on a new experiment. Where all do you have your RSS Feed Links ? Is there any other possible place where we can push it in ?

Daily Blog Tips is running a contest called Blogging Idol. Its basically on increasing the number of RSS Subscribers. I just entered myself into the contest. Even if I don’t win, its not a problem. There is a lot of scope for learning new things by experimenting on my own.

As readers, I need your support to win this contest. Since, the contest starts in November, I’ll be taking more steps then. But, now as a first step, if you are reading GotChance from a browser, take time to Subscribe to my RSS feed. It not only does increase my subscriber count, but it also makes it easy for you to follow GotChance. If you’ve never heard of RSS, take a look at this page to know what is RSS.

If you don’t want to subscribe from a feed reader, you can also subscribe using your email address. Just enter your email address into the form on the sidebar and click “Subscribe” :

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 :

1. 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.
2. 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.)
3. 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) :
   
4. 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…