Is Feedly feeding my pageview count?

November 18, 2014 10:09 AM

A couple of my blog's readers have told me that they read my posts via Feedly without clicking through to my blog, and they're wondering if that adds to my blog's pageview counter. I haven't been able to figure out whether it does by googling, so I ask you, is my site credited with the pageviews that happen via Feedly and other similar sites or are they just stealing my content?
posted by orange swan to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

They are not "stealing your content" they are utilising the RSS feed you provide. Those readers will not be counted in your blog stats.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:17 AM on November 18, 2014 [21 favorites]

No, the pageview counter only counts people who open the page. I follow lots of crafty blogs in Feedly, including yours. When I see something I want to read, I usually open the blog page. In that case, Feedly should be shown in your referrer logs. Google shows the first few lines of your posts in their search results to entice people to open the page. Feedly is similar. There are some blogs that only publish an abbreviated RSS feed that lets you know there is a new post with a title, but you have to open it to read it at all. You need really good titles then and you should still expect to see fewer referrals.
posted by soelo at 10:29 AM on November 18, 2014

Also, Feedly and many other rss readers maintain subscriber counts. This is used to rank search results within the reader when people search for new blogs to follow. So, these readers are helping to promote your blog just by subscribing, even if they don't read your feed.
posted by soelo at 10:32 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

I follow many blogs using Feedly and let me assure you that providing an RSS feed is an overall positive for your site. Without RSS there are many sites I would just forget about. If I read a bit of a blog post and I am interested I often click through and read the comments.
posted by peacheater at 11:36 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

You can configure your RSS feed to share only the headline, only the headline plus the description, only the headline plus an excerpt, or the whole shebang.

As a reader I prefer the whole shebang , although I continue to follow a number of blogs and publishers that limit their feeds.
posted by notyou at 2:08 PM on November 18, 2014

Response by poster: What would be best for my blog's performance: for me to configure my RSS feed to show only the title or the title and part of the post, or for me to leave it as it is?
posted by orange swan at 3:03 PM on November 18, 2014

Maybe test it?
posted by notyou at 3:48 PM on November 18, 2014

What would be best for my blog's performance

Please define "performance." If you are interested in, for instance, ad revenue, you will not get any from the RSS feed unless ads are included in the RSS feed. However, you should be cognizant that some portion of your readership (such as, for instance, me) will simply not read your blog at all if you do not include a full text or at least partial text RSS feed.
posted by saeculorum at 4:29 PM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: The idea I'm forming here is that although Feedly and other such sites don't contribute directly to my pageviews or ad revenue, they do benefit my blog in a "long game" sense by increasing its readership and visibility, so I should let them do their thing. Is that correct?
posted by orange swan at 5:36 PM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

That's correct. You will loose readers if you don't provide RSS.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:56 PM on November 18, 2014

Response by poster: Okay, will do. Thanks all!
posted by orange swan at 6:28 AM on November 19, 2014