Yes, it's a FeedBurner feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/MKuf). And it has less than 270,000 subscribers.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com – the same blog, with a new feed

Why can't they keep the feed URL the same though?

The old feed redirects to this one. It's a new feature in Blogger (http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/07/feedburner_integration_for_blo.php).

Did they loose subscibers in the switch?

Yeah, but why don't they make it transparent, e.g. use Feedburner but keep the same URL? I thought that was possible with Feedburner?

I don't think you can do this with Blog*Spot. Maybe if you have a custom domain. But then again, Blog*Spot is Google's domain...

Even with FeedBurner's MyBrand, you can't keep the same URL. For example, if you wanted to move http://blogoscoped.com/rss.xml to FeedBurner using MyBrand, you'd first have to setup a new CNAME subdomain (i.e. feeds.blogoscoped.com) and even then, you still wouldn't be able to use "rss.xml" as the filename.

>> Did they loose subscibers in the switch?

They shouldn't have done. I think that redirecting means they keep all subscribers (providing the RSS readers recognise the "302 Moved Temporarily" HTTP header).

Of course, many readers might not have pinged the feed since it moved (or FeedBurner might not be accurately reporting the stats yet) so you can probably expect this number to increase over the next few days.

And they still aren't redirecting Blogger's RSS feeds, as Ionut pointed out *:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/rss.xml

Although it looks like they're now doing the default address:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

[*] http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/07/redirect-your-blogger-feed-to.html

270 K readers, the Feedburner button at the Google Blog says. What's a "reader", and how does Feedburner determine this? E.g. how does it differentiate between a spam crawler trying to grab content for a spam blog? How does it know that my desktop Sharpreader is still me even though I have a dynamic IP? After what time does a reader who doesn't read the feed anymore stop being a reader? And what happens if I subscribe to a feed in say Google Reader, and then move on to Bloglines? Will the system find out?

http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/02/feedburners_view_of_the_feed_m.php

This doesn't answer my questions, though...

FeedBurner only adds the no of subscribers reported by feed readers. And feed readers usually report the total number of subscribers.

<< Yahoo reports active subscribers over a rolling 30-day period. Most other web-based readers report the total number of individuals who've subscribed, regardless of whether they have actually logged in recently. >>

<< Generally speaking, FeedBurner calculates subscribers by matching IP address and feed reader combinations, and then using our detailed understanding of the polling behavior of a multitude of readers, aggregators, browsers and bots on the market to make additional inferences. Because we manage upwards of 390,000 feeds, we see thousands of different feed-consuming clients. When new ones hit the market, we see them first and can report them. (Bots aren't included in the total subscriber count). >>

http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2006/09/a_peek_inside_techcrunchs_100k.php

> FeedBurner only adds the no of subscribers
> reported by feed readers. And feed readers
> usually report the total number of subscribers.

Ah OK. So then it completely depends on the accuracy of these third-party reportings, and as your quote shows, they are mostly inaccurate --- for instance, mostly they don't "fade out" old unused subscriptions. And all this also doesn't seem to account for subscribers who have 100 feeds subscribed of which they only actively read 10 or so.

Wouldn't it be more meaningful to only show "visits", based on a certain image visit (by a unique IP in a certain amount of time, like 30 minutes), the image being something like a 1x1 transparent GIF within the post?

They also have the "reach" metric that shows the no of "active" subscribers, but this is not public (it's only available to the feed owner).

http://blogs.feedburner.com/help/stats/what_is_reach/popup/

It may be like with Alexa data. People don't have precise numbers so they're desperate to show off *something*. And the higher the number, the more likely a blogger will post the Feedburner button on their blog, which benefits Feedburner because it's free advertising for their service.

Without seeing proof that Feedburner's data is correct, I don't believe it. It might be accidentally correct, of course, I don't have any specific knowledge whether or not the official Google Blog has 270,000 people reading along every now and then (which IMO is a "subscriber" as far as people think of this term).

What's a typical ratio of Feedburner-determined "active" vs "inactive" subscribers, did anyone who uses Feedburner compare the two numbers for their feed? E.g. is it like 10%...? (And why would Feedburner not show that reach in the public button, as it seems more meaningful if it's correct?)

I don't know what's the typical ratio. In my case, it's around 20%, but it fluctuates.

Just to add to the conversation, the FeedBurner subscriber stats I've seen seem to be hugely exaggerated due to Google Desktop subscriptions, which I *think* occur when anyone just visits your site.

...which occur when anyone *frequently* visits your site.

I see. Thanks for the clarification, Ionut!

Any idea what counts as *frequently* then?

Update: The button on Google's blog now jumped up to 490 K readers.

TechCrunch has 470K subscribers, does that mean Googleblog is the most read (err "subscribed") blog on the web?
Where their is a "top" of the blogs by Feedburner?