Yet another post about my fantastic adventures with Feedburner. After writing that things were back to normal, my friend started to play tricks again, almost immediately in fact, leading me to think that I was getting punished for claiming victory to fast (I was raised a Catholic after all).
Since my previous, naive post, here’s how the situation has evolved:
You can tell what ride I’ve had; swinging from sentiments of being loved one minute, and rejected the other. My doctor actually told me that it might have caused permanent damage to what was somehow a healthy 45–year old heart.
Can I sue Feedburner/Google for “inconsistent reporting” reasons? Sleepless nights? Existential crisis? I guess not, since no one can touch “free”.
So, what are my real numbers? Well, I guess it depends on my mood, if not accuracy. Shall I calculate an average, or just plain decide to care only when the numbers are in a high phase?
I know more than one manager whose attitude towards numbers is just that!
Hi Jacques,
Understanding Feedburner stats has been baffling us as well, but I did come across this post that might help shed some light on how to read the numbers: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/08/16/why-does-my-feedburner-subscriber-count-fluctuate/
The fluctuations has to do with how many people are requesting the rss feed on a daily basis. If they don’t access whatever reader they are using (ie. Google reader, Bloglines, Pageflakes, etc.) on a given day, then the number for that day will be lower than what you’d expect, but this doesn’t mean that a bunch of people have now unsubscribed from your feed.
With this info in hand, it might be easier to make interpretations and better track trends.
I agree though, it’s enough to make you go crazy…
Hi Xurxo,
Thanks for your comment. I was aware of that, and it has explained the “normal” variations I was experiencing since the beginning. However, what I am referring to is a variation that is either 110 subscribers or 220 (plus/minus). It would be surprising that the same amount of people either access the blog or not on the same day.
I get the sense that one of those readers you mention has an irragular connection to my blog, or Feedburner, or that Feedburner has a problem connecting. Either way, this phenomenon appears to be more technical than human.
But I don’t have an answer yet…