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[SOLVED] Count the number of RSS feed subscribers?


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I think this would be very difficult if not impossible to do. I suppose you could accomplish the unique amount of subscribers thing if you tacked an ID of some sort onto the URL that would be different for every pageview and, in effect, user. Total amount of views is the real problem because the content is likely cached as people download it. I suppose that clients check for feed updates every once in a while, and that would be measurable in the same way as the amount of unique subscribers... but then again, it will be just that: A count of how often each user checks for updates for the feed.

I think this would be very difficult if not impossible to do. I suppose you could accomplish the unique amount of subscribers thing if you tacked an ID of some sort onto the URL that would be different for every pageview and, in effect, user. Total amount of views is the real problem because the content is likely cached as people download it. I suppose that clients check for feed updates every once in a while, and that would be measurable in the same way as the amount of unique subscribers... but then again, it will be just that: A count of how often each user checks for updates for the feed.

 

I'd personally have a PHP page that displayed the feed, logging the IP addresses, and if an IP address visits the feed 5 times within a week, they are said to be subscribed, in which case you can count the number of scribed IP addresses. It wouldn't be 100% reliable, but I think it'd do well

Even more impossible to the extent of those who take the feeds, filter them into a site where that sites users can view them.. pulling the feed either every time a user hits there site, or by running crons to pull the feed every few hours or so and storing it in a database.

 

One IP in that concept could be a result of thousands of views on another page.

 

I for one have done that. There's a feed on one of my clients sites that likes to have the feed listed on their site as well. It runs live so to speak through there site from the feeds origin. Then for awhile I was also harvesting monster.com feeds and storing them for another project of mine. I can't really picture an ethical way to count the feed subscriptions, short of like someone else saying unique IDs having people actually sign up for feed and getting a unique id to go with it which still in theory suffers from the possibility someone is going to filter it to visitors of there site with the same tracking number.

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