Photo by James Cridland
As you probably know, FeedBurner allows you to display the FeedCount, a small widget (chicklet as they call it) that shows the number of people who subscribed to your blog. It’s a known fact that bloggers (and people in general) tend to follow a crowd, so having a significant FeedCount can determine a snowball effect on your subscriber number. On the other hand, choosing to show a small FeedCount can drive people away. That’s why it’s better to show the FeedCount when your blog has a consistent number of readers.
I used to have a plugin installed, that allowed me to display the subscriber count as plain HTML text, instead of the FeedBurner chicklet (for design reasons). I deleted that a couple of days ago, because someone on a forum told me people could be thinking that I’m faking my subscriber number. That would have been hard to believe, since that number is 17. 
But I removed it anyway.
What determined me to write this post? Well… I was browsing one of the blogs that I subscribed to, when I noticed the content is not all that great, yet the chicklet showed about 150 subscribers. Sorry, but that’s the truth. So I right clicked and noticed the guy was using the RSS feed from another blog. Needless to say I’m no longer subscribed to that blog.
So I’m asking you: is faking subscriber count worth it? Is there something to gain? If people do subscribe because you seem popular, won’t they unsubscribe when they will realize your content sucks? And another thing: if you are using someone else’s RSS feed (and not a static image) to fake subscriber count, why not use Problogger? I mean… if you’re faking it, why not aim high? 
Don’t know about you, but I would rather have my 17 loyal subscribers, rather than faking a crowd.
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6 Comments
Freelanceswitch is also faking their subscriber number. For about 3 months their subscribe number was 22100 and now it’s 22700 (just checked it) how can a subscribe number go from 22100 to 22700 over night. They’re like faking it. Plus if you check out they’re site at alexa rankings or smartpagerank.com things don’t add up. So no things are not worth it. Maby the number of subscribers is facked so they can justify the advertisement. 3000$ / month. I think i’ll unsubscribe from freelanceswitch in the future.
No, I don’t think Freelanceswitch is faking it. They are just very popular so their readership grows month after month. Check out this Feed Analysis from Blogperfume.
they’re rss feed couldn’t grow over night with 500 people. Maby with 20 - 50 but not with 500.
I would not be so fast to accuse FreelanceSwitch of faking their feed count. Really. What difference is 22,100 or 22,700? There is absolutely nothing to be gained from such an insignificant difference (less than 3%). BUT there is a tremendous amount to be lost if they truly were being dishonest.
Any regular user of feedburner or any other RSS feed service understands that there can be significant fluctuations in feed count based on a number of factors (not just number of subscribers).
So, back off FreelanceSwitch. It’s never a good idea to accuse someone of lying without knowing the facts.
BTW, Adrian, thanks for checking the facts on the site you visited. I’ve heard of this happening before and the practice is reprehensible. But, I wouldn’t worry about people accusing you of being dishonest. I am not aware of too many people who would who make unfounded accusation the way that stfalx has.
I know, Jim. That’s my point too. I mean if you have like 50 subcribers, + / - 5 subscribers is something normal. The same logic applies when you have >22000 subscribers: +500 over night is nothing. Especially because of the nature of their articles. One fresh great article (although most of them are great) can boost subscriber count over night.
I think it’s an absolute no-go when a blog-reader finds out, that you’re faking your subscription-count. And I also think you should just put that feedburner badge on you blog if you have enough reader.