Blog Discussions

1

LOL I've got my feedcount on my blog with my exceedingly high number of...*drumroll*...3!

Personally, it amuses me when so many people have sometimes passionate opinions on whether or not other people should show certain things on their blogs. My personal philosophy is "it's your blog, do what you want and have fun!".

If you want to show your subscriber count, show it. If you don't, don't.

2

My personal philosophy is "it's your blog, do what you want and have fun!".

Second that!

Whenever I have any site issue, be it design or what to display, I tell myself, "It's my blog, my site, and I can do whatever I want with it."

Right now, I don't really have a place for the FeedBurner widget, so I don't display it.

3

I'm bemused by people's concern about showing low numbers. Who cares?

4

I know that some believe it adds some legitimacy to a site if the count is high, but as a reader it provides absolutely no value to me. I judge a site based on the content, not whether it's popular with others.

It's also a number that is so easily gamed or faked that it can't be taken seriously anyway.

SB

5

I have always shown my feed count, it isn't very high, but to be honest I don't care! :D

I like watching it go up and down, up and down and so on! Haha

I saw one today that had... wait for it... 308976 subscribers and to be honest the site was c**p! I don't really take much notice of the counts on sites but that one made me laugh!

6

I know that I am in a minority but I don't really care about subscriber count. I really want folks to visit the blog to read the posts. I don't display a subscriber count at all.

7

Suze - I agree. Being a stats fanatic, I like seeing the figures, but I don't draw conclusions from the subscriber count alone. I do find it interesting to compare my figures to other sites and see if I've closed the gap on any of the larger sites. It's just a point of reference really.

Vincent - we can't please everyone, but I don't want to completely screw things up and justify it by saying "well it's my site". The best way I've found so far is to introduce changes gradually, then people are more likely to stick around even if they are not 100% sure about the changes. If I were to spend the weekend making massive changes to my site, it might be too much. The main thing I want to avoid is changing things for the sake of it. But this is really another topic... :)

Ian - well, obviously some people care or they wouldn't write about them... :)

Scott - I'm starting to think the reason not to display a low subscriber count is to prevent the doubters from writing off a brand new site without looking at it. Putting the subscriber count up doesn't make the site worth reading, but it does get over that initial hurdle of "that site has no readers, it can't be any good". And not showing the counter can make it obvious the count is low. It's all rather silly really. I think it's much better to look at whether the content is any good (as you do), and also the number of comments a typical post gets. Sites with no comments are probably more likely to appreciate a comment than those who get dozens.

Sarah - numbers are certainly misleading. I think this kind of thing has to be put into context and reviewed with any other information that's available. If someone compared my site to the 300,000 subscriber site and concluded that mine is not a good site, it's probably not the site for them.

Alan - you don't seem to be in the minority here! ;) I want people to read my posts too. I just like stats!

Thanks for the comments. :)

8

I tend to look for them when I visit a new site. But I probably put too much "credibility" on them. From what I've read recently, they can be "doctored" by people who know how. And they can be inaccurate. The accuracy is what is making me hesitate right now. Do they drop to zero when the feedburner site shows zero???

9

Hi Lightening, thanks for the comment. :) The counter should show what your Feedburner account shows - so if Feedburner says zero, your site should say the same. That said, I've noticed that sometimes the Feedburner website figures don't match up with the counter, especially for my blog over at Injader. And if there are bigger problems, they are usually widespread enough that you wouldn't be alone in having unusual figures.

10

When I finally reached 100 subscribers, I displayed it in my sidebar. I was so excited to reach that milestone after 9 months of blogging. I even posted about it, but not to be boastful. Instead I used it as a chance to thank my loyal readers and to let them know how much it means to me that they come back to read me, day after day.

On a side note, I notice every morning that my feed count drops to zero on the Feedburner dash, but my sidebar shows whatever the count was before it fell to zero. I don't know why Feedburner does this, but at least my count doesn't drop to zero with it. If it did, I'd have to remove it.

11

Hi Kathy, welcome to my site. :) Congrats on reaching triple figures - I recently did the same myself. I have only noticed my subscribers dropping to zero on Feedburner for one of my sites - Injader - benbarden.com is OK. Not sure why, but Feedburner does seem to have occasional glitches.

12

well Ben, you were mean to me, bribing me with music -sniff- XD Don't know if this is part of feedburner, but it's nice to get site update via email