Oct 15 2007

How to Find Google Reader Subscriber Count

Published by at 6:58 pm under Feedburner,General,Google,Top Australian Blogs

I read via Darren at ProBlogger that Google Reader is revealing subscriber number count.

So how do you find out how many Google Reader subscribers there are for your feed (or someone else’s)?

Firstly, I guess it helps if you have a Google Reader account. When you are logged in – click on “browse” in the side menu:

Google Reader Browse Subscriptions

Next search for the feed you’re looking for:

Google Reader Browse

Magically the subscription will appear:

Subscriptions for Blogpond

Obviously this only shows the number of subscribers via Google Reader, and differs drastically from FeedBurner stats (well, it does for me, anyway).

Questions for you 

  • Do you notice a big discrepancy between your Google Reader figure and FeedBurner (if you use it)? By what coefficient (eg FeedBurner is showing X.X times more subscribers)?
  • Is this figure a reliable metric to compare websites?
  • Do you think I should add it into the formula for calculating the top 100 blog index?

15 responses so far

15 Responses to “How to Find Google Reader Subscriber Count”

  1. # Snoskredon 15 Oct 2007 at 7:34 pm

    Mine shows 29, which is a big difference from the feedburner count. However about half of my feed subscribers seem to have got lost in the move :( :( – another reason for blogger users to use feedburner rather than the blogger feed. :)

    Cheers,
    Snoskred

  2. # Cellobellaon 15 Oct 2007 at 8:18 pm

    I’ve got 8 in Google and about 27 according to Feedburner… :)

  3. # Karen (Misc Mum)on 15 Oct 2007 at 8:49 pm

    Lord – I don’t know how to make sense of mine. I tried earlier today when I read this over at Darren’s.

    p.s – I am inconsolable over Ben ……. you don’t need to ask who Ben is, I’m sure 😉

  4. # Kinon 15 Oct 2007 at 8:53 pm

    I’ve got 7 in google and 7 showing as subscribed through google on feedburner.

    As for your last question, do you think it would help my blog make it to the top 100? In that case yes 😉

  5. # Kinon 15 Oct 2007 at 8:59 pm

    Oh forgot to add, my total subscriber number in feedburner is 3 times that showing in google.

  6. # Megon 15 Oct 2007 at 9:07 pm

    Snoskred – hope they catch up soon…

    CB – so 3.375 times, similar to Kin and here

    Karen – probably not made easy by the multiple feeds. I’ve just done an Idol update – I knew you’d be shocked.

    Kin – 😀 The difference is roughly the same here.

  7. # Neeravon 15 Oct 2007 at 9:27 pm

    Same as everyone else the Google reader figures are roughly 10% of my real subscriber numbers today (35 vs 343)

    If anything I would suggest that you change the formula so instead of dividing by an arbitrary 5, you divide by pagerank instead

    Nothing at all to do with the fact that my pagerank is 5 and I would shoot up the list :-)

    Anyway you’re already displaying the Feedburner subscriber numbers using the awareness API and they are accurate so please keep that

  8. # Megon 15 Oct 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Neerav

    Are most people quoting those type of figures – feedburner around 10x Google Readers subs? Some of the figures I’m seeing are around 2.5 – 4 x.

    Re dividing by PageRank – the problem is dividing by zero 😉

    While I’m displaying the FeedBurner numbers, they’re obviously not being included in the index (and of course it’s a pain in the proverbial to gather them)!

  9. # Sephyrothon 16 Oct 2007 at 1:22 am

    Reader for me says 5, and FeedBurner has 16 for Sunday (5 of which are from Google FeedFetcher), which is down from a high of 42 a couple of weeks ago, and about half from before I switched by Blogger feed over to there.

    Interestingly, they report 2 subscribers to my blogspot feed, and 4 (including myself) subscribers to the old dot-net feed from Blogger.

    Sephyroth

  10. # Megon 16 Oct 2007 at 10:16 am

    Sephy – hope everyone catches up.

    I notice FeedBurner shows more Google Reader subscribers than Google does, but this might include iGoogle. I’m still showing 18 subscribers from my old wordpress.com feed – which indicates some people are not really vigilant about deleting old feeds!

  11. # Colin Campbellon 17 Oct 2007 at 8:03 am

    Mine is about ten times less than Feedburner

  12. # Mihaela "Mig" Licaon 17 Oct 2007 at 10:59 am

    Well, I know I have over 100 subscribers with FeedBurner, and what Google shows is not really relevant (19). FeedBurner belongs to Google anyway… I wonder why they still keep two lists…

  13. # Megon 17 Oct 2007 at 11:12 am

    Colin and Mig – thanks for the feedback.

    Sounds like there is wide variation among blogs. Some showing 2x all the way up to 10.

  14. # Neeravon 17 Oct 2007 at 3:58 pm

    Why is it a pain in the proverbial to gather Feedburner numbers?

    I was under the impression you could automate it easily using their API like ratified does – http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2005/06/feed_awareness.php

  15. # Megon 17 Oct 2007 at 4:13 pm

    Neerav

    I’m rather technically inept. If Scott Yang hadn’t created a groovy script for me (which someone else changed into a batch file), I’d still be doing it all manually. This means that I have to query each feed directly (and manually), or go in and out of the pages at ratified, which probably takes the best part of half an hour.