Somebody Played With My Feed Count
With so much talk going on in the blogosphere these day about how a person can inflate his/her blog feedburner count by netvibes and similar other means. I was expecting that many people will try this to inflate their feed count on feedburner ticker.
But I never thought that somebody can even use it to create problems for other bloggers. Just have a look at two screenshots of jimkarter.com feedburner count on August 9th and August 10th. It seems somebody created 160 ‘Outlook 2007′ feeds to my account in just one day.
The number of ‘Outlook 2007′ feed readers were only at 11 just one day before, but now it has reached 171. Thats an addition of 160 new readers in just one day by just one method. I know that this is not possible.
What can I do about it?
I am not sure if I can do anything about it. This is some kind of a problem which only feedburner can fix. I wish they share the IP address of the subscribers.
But why is somebody is doing this?
I can only think of two reasons. First, somebody just wanted to try the method but did not want to try it on his own blog due to fear of getting banned, and jimkarter.com just came to the mind first. Second reason may be to kick the jimkarter.com feed readers count quite up and then bringing it down in a day to show people that what he (whoever did it) has some kind of power.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Jim Karter on August 11th 2008 in Blogging, Social Networking, Stats
Related Make Money Online Posts:
42 Responses to “Somebody Played With My Feed Count”
Sponsored links from google adsense.
Harry responded on 11 Aug 2008 at 10:35 pm #
Might be a bug as well. I have seen weird things happening with feed burner.
Jim Karter responded on 11 Aug 2008 at 11:20 pm #
Bugs in feedburner have always decreased the count by not including some of them. But it has never shown more than what it actually is.
So i don’t think its a but at them.
Amit Bhawani responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 12:26 am #
Too bad i guess someone is playing out with your feeds and trying out new ways. Better you should contact feedburner team once.
Link Building Bible responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 5:06 am #
The guy at infectedbybugs dot com … his count has gone from 200 subscribers to 700 subscribers in like 3 weeks…. and it magically all happened when he listed his site for auction on sitepoint and didnt get the offers he wanted
Amit Bhawani responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 8:16 am #
We really hope feedburner fixes all these problems, because we dont expect bloggers start showing fake feed counts. Also feedburner needs to make sure that the subscribers are increasing in a regular speed and in case of sudden bumps they need to verify it.
Latest gadgets responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 8:52 am #
feedburner is always buggy.. it shows fluctuations everyday..
Amit Bhawani responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 11:53 am #
Today it jumps to 1820, jim did you contact feedburner team about this? Its going to hurt you in long run!
Zak Show responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 5:20 pm #
Pretty weird, I don’t see the reason why people can do that! You can contact feedburner about this and maybe it get solved.
Thanks for this info +1
Jim Karter responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 9:20 pm #
Now its 1820.
‘Outlook 2007′ showing 551 feed readers. I hate it.
Web Freak responded on 12 Aug 2008 at 11:27 pm #
It is some bug definitely !
medical videos responded on 13 Aug 2008 at 3:44 am #
I think it is a bug and they should share ip or allow one trial for each IP.
Amit Bhawani responded on 13 Aug 2008 at 8:08 am #
Today it jumps to 2034, did you contact feedburner support jim?
Jim Karter responded on 13 Aug 2008 at 9:03 am #
Ya, its 2034 now. I think I should stop bothering about it now.
Bhushan responded on 13 Aug 2008 at 9:15 am #
As Amit said you should contact the feed burner to avoid banning as this is a serious problem. They may seem you have done it.
Amit Bhawani responded on 14 Aug 2008 at 8:41 am #
Thats true you need to get all those stumble reviews removed, also the feedburner count is now 2142, did you get a reply from them jim?
Carol responded on 14 Aug 2008 at 3:07 pm #
Who ever done this, it’s really suck. Hope you have gotten some help from the feedburner support.
Amit Bhawani responded on 16 Aug 2008 at 4:59 am #
Seems its finally reverted back to the normal count. @ 1422, did feedburner do this
Jim Karter responded on 17 Aug 2008 at 10:24 pm #
Ok! Its back on 1256. I just made a post in the feedburner support group. I did not contact them directly. I am not sure whether they did it.
All those ‘Outlook 2007′ subscribers are gone.
Now I am thinking, it may be a glitch from feedburner side. Anyways, all is fine now.
Dedicated Designing Services India responded on 17 Aug 2008 at 11:09 pm #
@Jim, Congrats Mate for getting it back.
Zak Show responded on 18 Aug 2008 at 2:17 pm #
Back to normal, great!
Jim Karter responded on 19 Aug 2008 at 8:46 am #
Sh!!! Back to 2093!
I think I should stop worrying about it.
condo responded on 19 Aug 2008 at 9:23 pm #
good for you it come back
Jim Karter responded on 21 Aug 2008 at 7:59 pm #
I got this email from “Mr. David Handelman.”
———————
Dear Jim Karter,
My name is David and I am reading your make money blog for quite a while now and find it very interesting. I have notice you have been discussing an issue with your feedburner counter which seems to be jumping and I just felt obligated to note you that the numbers are valid and I am just referring real users to your feed using my very successful make money toolbar which generates ~1000 new users every day (Although, this should not appear, as far as I understand, in your email counter but only in the RSS readers counter). I am sure you will find my traffic beneficial to your business and hope you won’t mind sharing your content through my toolbar.
Best Regards,
David Handelman
———————
Well, I am not sure what to think of it.
Amit Bhawani responded on 22 Aug 2008 at 9:12 pm #
May be you just got lucky if thats a legit trick
SEO Tricks responded on 29 Aug 2008 at 4:33 am #
Same thing happened with me once.. I was surprised then did a little research and found out that it was a trick someone played on me.. using netvibes
Zak Show responded on 01 Sep 2008 at 3:54 pm #
Some one played with it again, it’s showing about 4k righ now!
Web Freak responded on 01 Sep 2008 at 8:28 pm #
Sidebar is showing 3202 readers??
SEO Tricks responded on 02 Sep 2008 at 1:07 am #
I guess Google have fixed it I tried it out.. and its no more working
Poetica responded on 06 Sep 2008 at 8:19 am #
I have seen reports on several other sites that feed numbers appear to be fluctuating; since I have so few, it hasn’t affected mine
Zak Show responded on 07 Sep 2008 at 4:35 pm #
The feed counter has been jumped to over 4000!
Zak Show responded on 07 Sep 2008 at 4:36 pm #
It’s 4480 exactry right now!
Ruby Web responded on 17 Sep 2008 at 6:37 am #
I think it was probably a bug, because that’s absolutely strange. But glad that all is back to normal now
Seebux.com responded on 17 Sep 2008 at 7:43 pm #
thx 4 your info jim. there is so many crakers out there and they just want to falling our credibility..
BLOGGING TIPS responded on 18 Sep 2008 at 10:52 am #
THNX IT IS VERY USEFUL POST
Zak Show responded on 19 Sep 2008 at 4:43 pm #
Where are you Jim ?
Zak Show responded on 19 Sep 2008 at 4:44 pm #
Feed up to 6k, seriously you should react as soon as possible !
Chris responded on 22 Sep 2008 at 5:36 am #
Wow! I hadn’t been here for a while and saw the feed count over 6,000! Now I understand why! Jim, any luck in sorting this out? It’s really messed with your numbers. Is there any way to verify with feedburner whether these are legit?
Zak Show responded on 23 Sep 2008 at 11:21 am #
Yep, It’s a kind of a problem the feed now as I see it break the 6.5k mark !
ZK@WebTrafficROI responded on 24 Sep 2008 at 12:38 pm #
Your best bet is to email feedburner and let them know.
Chinese seoservices responded on 24 Sep 2008 at 8:04 pm #
Usefull tips,gona try and check it out later.
Abhik responded on 25 Oct 2008 at 11:46 pm #
What if the subscribers you get is real?
A hike in the count doesn’t always means that somebody is playing foul on you.
Wanna Try responded on 05 Nov 2008 at 10:48 am #
I want to tray this too, just for experiment.
Thanks.