Tips on using feeds and information on subscriber counts in Reader
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Does your site have a feed? A feed can connect you to your readers and keep them returning to your
content. Most blogs have feeds, but increasingly, other types of sites with frequently changing
content are making feeds available as well. Some examples of sites that offer feeds:
Find out how many readers are subscribed to your feed
If your site has a feed, you can now get information about the number of
Google Reader and Google Personalized home page subscribers.
If you use Feedburner, you'll start
to see numbers from these subscriptions taken into account. You can also
find this number
in the crawling data in your logs. We crawl feeds with the user-agent
Feedfetcher-Google, so simply look for this user-agent in your logs to
find the subscriber number. If multiple URLs point to the same feed, we may crawl each separately,
so in this case, just count up the subscriber numbers listed for each unique feed-id. An example
of what you might see in your logs is below:
You can submit your feed as a Sitemap in
Webmaster Tools. This will let us know about the URLs listed in the feed so we can crawl and index
them for web search. In addition, if you want to make sure your feed shows up in the list of
available feeds for Google products, simply add a <link /> tag with the feed URL
to the <head> section of your page. For instance:
Remember that Feedfetcher-Google retrieves feeds only for use in Google Reader and
Personalized home page. For the content to appear in web search results, Googlebot will have to
crawl it as well.
Don't yet have a feed?
If you use a content management system or blogging platform, feed functionality may be built right
now. For instance, if you use Blogger, you can go to
Settings>Site Feed and make sure that
Publish Site Feed is set to Yes. You can also set the feed to either full or short
and can add a footer. The URL listed here is what subscribers add to their feed readers. A link to
this URL will appear on your blog.
More tips from the Google Reader team
In order to provide the best experience for your users, the Google Reader team has also put
together some
tips for feed publishers.
This document covers feed best practices, common implementation pitfalls, and various ways to
promote your feeds. Whether you're creating your feeds from scratch or have been publishing them
for a long time, we encourage you to take a look at our tips to make the most of your feeds. If
you have any questions, please
get in touch.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eSite feeds connect you to readers and keep them returning to your content, much like the examples from news sources, companies, blogs, and shopping sites.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eYou can find out how many users are subscribed to your feed through Google services and your site's server logs by looking for the \u003ccode\u003eFeedfetcher-Google\u003c/code\u003e user-agent.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eSubmit your feed as a Sitemap in Webmaster Tools and add a \u003ccode\u003e<link />\u003c/code\u003e tag to your page's \u003ccode\u003e<head>\u003c/code\u003e to make your feed accessible to Google products and web search.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eIf you don't have a feed yet, check your content management system for built-in feed functionality or refer to the Google Reader team's tips for creating and promoting feeds.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Sites with frequently updated content, like news sources, companies, blogs, and shopping sites, can use feeds to connect with readers. Site owners can find their subscriber count by checking logs for the `Feedfetcher-Google` user-agent. To make feeds available to Google, submit them as Sitemaps in Webmaster Tools or add a `\u003clink /\u003e` tag to the page's `\u003chead\u003e`. Content management systems often have built-in feed functionality. Review Google's feed publisher tips for best practices.\n"],null,["| It's been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated (for example, some images may be missing, and some links may not work anymore).\n\nTuesday, February 20, 2007\n\n\nDoes your site have a feed? A feed can connect you to your readers and keep them returning to your\ncontent. Most blogs have feeds, but increasingly, other types of sites with frequently changing\ncontent are making feeds available as well. Some examples of sites that offer feeds:\n\n- News sources such as the New York Times publish [feeds of their latest stories](https://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/index)\n- Companies like Apple publish feeds of their [press releases](https://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/pr.rss), as well as [a few other feeds](https://www.apple.com/rss/).\n- Blogs including the Official Google Blog publish feeds with their [latest posts](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default)\n- Shopping sites like Buy.com publish feeds with [noteworthy deals](https://www.buy.com/rss/feed.asp?loc=273&grp=4)\n\nFind out how many readers are subscribed to your feed\n\n\nIf your site has a feed, you can now get information about the number of\n[Google Reader and Google Personalized home page subscribers](https://googlereader.blogspot.com/2007/02/one-subscriber-two-subscribers-three.html).\nIf you use [Feedburner](https://www.feedburner.com/), you'll start\nto see numbers from these subscriptions taken into account. You can also\n[find this number](https://www.google.com/help/reader/publishers.html#faq)\nin the crawling data in your logs. We crawl feeds with the user-agent\n`Feedfetcher-Google`, so simply look for this `user-agent` in your logs to\nfind the subscriber number. If multiple URLs point to the same feed, we may crawl each separately,\nso in this case, just count up the subscriber numbers listed for each unique feed-id. An example\nof what you might see in your logs is below: \n\n```\nUser-Agent: Feedfetcher-Google; (+https://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 4 subscribers; feed-id=1794595805790851116)\n```\n\nMaking your feed available to Google\n\n\nYou can [submit your feed as a Sitemap](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/overview) in\nWebmaster Tools. This will let us know about the URLs listed in the feed so we can crawl and index\nthem for web search. In addition, if you want to make sure your feed shows up in the list of\navailable feeds for Google products, simply add a `\u003clink /\u003e` tag with the feed URL\nto the `\u003chead\u003e` section of your page. For instance: \n\n```\n\u003clink rel=\"alternate\" type=\"application/atom+xml\" href=\"https://www.example.com/atom.xml\" /\u003e\n```\n\n\nRemember that `Feedfetcher-Google` retrieves feeds only for use in Google Reader and\nPersonalized home page. For the content to appear in web search results, Googlebot will have to\ncrawl it as well.\n\nDon't yet have a feed?\n\n\nIf you use a content management system or blogging platform, feed functionality may be built right\nnow. For instance, if you use Blogger, you can go to\n*Settings* \\\u003e *Site Feed* and make sure that\n*Publish Site Feed* is set to *Yes*. You can also set the feed to either full or short\nand can add a footer. The URL listed here is what subscribers add to their feed readers. A link to\nthis URL will appear on your blog.\n\nMore tips from the Google Reader team\n\n\nIn order to provide the best experience for your users, the Google Reader team has also put\ntogether some\n[tips for feed publishers](https://www.google.com/help/reader/publishers).\nThis document covers feed best practices, common implementation pitfalls, and various ways to\npromote your feeds. Whether you're creating your feeds from scratch or have been publishing them\nfor a long time, we encourage you to take a look at our tips to make the most of your feeds. If\nyou have any questions, please\n[get in touch](https://groups.google.com/group/Google-Labs-Reader)."]]
