Using Feedburner to Add Statistics to Your RSS Feed

Out of many of the free RSS and blogging services that I have tried one of the most useful has been Feedburner. Feedburner allows you to publish your RSS feed and provides circulation statistics about your RSS feed. It also allows you to make your feed more friendly by using Feedburners Smartfeed system and can also make your feed browser friendly.

The most useful service provided by Feedburner are it's circulation statistics. These statistics are not only useful for yourself to see how popular your feed is but also to provide circulation statistics to potential advertisers. Feedburner can tell you which RSS readers are being used to read your feed, how many readers you have and which posts readers are clicking through back to your website.

Feedburners Smartfeed system can supply the most valid feed by detecting which RSS reader the user is using. This irons out any potential compatibility problems there may be between your feed and the readers feed reading software. If your visitor click on your RSS feed subscription link Feedburner will provide your visitor with a web friendly version of the feed rather than an unformatted XML file. This is great for educating the reader about RSS feeds.

To use Feedburners services first you need to go to Feedburner and enter your feed link. Your feed link is the address you give your readers to add your feed to their feed readers. Take a look at my RSS sign up page at Newsniche to get a better idea of how this works.

Once you have your feed address enter it into text box on the Feedburner page. Clicking on ok will bring up a page with all of the options for your feed, you will need to decide for yourself which services you need. At the bottom of the page will be your new feed address which you will now offer to your readers instead of your original feed address. Follow the rest of the instructions to complete the process and then you will have an improved feed with statistics.

There is one final point before we finish and it is something optional you may wish to choose. You may wish to keep your existing feed address if you have existing subscribers and to future proof your feed. To do this you will need to use an HTTP redirect in your htaccess file. If this means nothing to you I would suggest further research before doing this.

You will need to add a new line to your htaccess file.

redirect temp /rssfeed.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedburnerFeed

You will need to change /rssfeed.xml to the name of your current feed and the Feedburner path to the new feed address you will be given by Feedburner. You will need to point Feedburner to a copy of your feed that only Feedburner will see. You will then offer the /rssfeed.xml feed address you created in your htaccess file to you visitors to subscribe to your feed.

This is how it should work. Feedburner will periodically check your address you gave to Feedburner for new posts. Your visitors will subscribe using the address you used in your htaccess file and get redirected to the feed that Feedburner has created for you. This will mean that in the future if you wish to stop using the Feedburner service all you need to do is remove the line from your htaccess file and your readers will not notice any difference.

Allan is the webmaster at Newsniche an RSS resource for webmasters. Learn how to use RSS to attract and retain visitors to your site.

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Google News Updated : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:50:53 GMT World is united to tackle financial crisis, IMF says - MarketWatch BBC News World is united to tackle financial crisis, IMF says MarketWatch - 2 hours ago By Rex Nutting WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Financial policymakers from 180 nations around the world are united in their resolve to tackle the financial crisis, Youssef Boutros-Ghali, head of the International Monetary Fund's policy committee, ... G7 nations face going cap in hand to China guardian.co.uk Finance officials comments at IMF meetings Reuters AFP - BBC News - Bloomberg - New York Times all 579 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:23:46 GMT GOP Officials Hope for Stability From McCain - New York Times Voice of America GOP Officials Hope for Stability From McCain New York Times - 1 hour ago By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ELISABETH BUMILLER Republican leaders across the country said Saturday that they were worried that Senator John McCain was heading for defeat unless he brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear message ... Antiwar Protestor Disrupts McCain Iowa Rally Washington Post Obama needs 75 percent turnout in Philadelphia, says Rendell CNN Political Ticker The Weekly Standard - Summit Daily News - USA Today - WNCT all 1,087 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:23:47 GMT YouTube to play full TV episodes with ads - Afterdawn.com Vancouver Sun YouTube to play full TV episodes with ads Afterdawn.com - 2 hours ago Google has announced that it will begin offering full-length TV episodes through its YouTube platform beginning this week, thanks to a content deal with CBS. YouTube to Offer TV Shows With Ads Strewn Through New York Times YouTube beams up Star Trek for long-form video, prominent new ads CNET News Wall Street Journal - eFluxMedia - Silicon Alley Insider - Bizjournals.com all 109 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:13:12 GMT Gay Marriage Is Ruled Legal in Connecticut - New York Times Boston Globe Gay Marriage Is Ruled Legal in Connecticut New York Times - 5 hours ago In Hartford, Crystal Pretzman of Willimantic, Conn., celebrated the State Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Video: Connecticut Court Allows Gay Marriage AssociatedPress Marriage ruling not the end of debate in Conn. The Associated Press Newsday - Washington Post - Reuters - NECN all 1,711 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:13:08 GMT US space tourist set for blast-off - Reuters Canada.com US space tourist set for blast-off Reuters - 40 minutes ago By Maria Golovnina BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - US video game magnate Richard Garriott will blast off into space aboard a Russian spaceship on Sunday watched by his father, a NASA astronaut who went into space at the height of the Cold War. US space tourist set for launch BBC News Russian space chief reassures US partners The Associated Press Times Online - USA Today - Spaceflight Now - RedOrbit all 287 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:10:50 GMT Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young - International Herald Tribune Times Online Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young International Herald Tribune - 10 hours ago AP HELSINKI, Finland: Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari said Saturday that finding jobs for more than 1 billion young people in the Middle East and Asia will be a major challenge to peacebuilding in the next decade. Video: Ex-Finland President Wins Nobel Peace Prize AssociatedPress Nobel Finn Wall Street Journal Voice of America - Times Online - Burlington Hawk Eye all 1,453 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:12:07 GMT Got $700 Billion? Sweat the Details - New York Times Telegraph.co.uk Got $700 Billion? Sweat the Details New York Times - 3 hours ago The bailout plan gives Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, three broad choices in buying assets. By ALAN S. BLINDER THE House of Representatives was against the bailout bill before it was for it. US firms up plan to buy into banks to stem crisis Reuters Paulson Indicates Need to Purchase Bank Equity `Soon as We Can' Bloomberg Los Angeles Times - Washington Post - The Miami Herald - International Herald Tribune all 2,358 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:39:07 GMT Add Data Feed Content to Your Website Amazon RSS Feeds

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