There’s been a lot of discussion about whether Google is deprecating their Feedburner API.
Not sure what an API is?
Watch a video – What is an API? (Application Programming Interface).
This could also mean Google might shutdown the Feedburner service at some stage, however i do this this is unlikely.
Here’s the announcement from the Google.
Content management services, including popular blogging platforms, are already making use of this API to help publishers promote feed stats in new and interesting ways. Source: Google Developers.
What Does This Mean?
Well firstly, this doesn’t mean that Feedburner is definitely closing down.
It simply means the API which is used by developers to create tracking & stats applications for Feedburner uses will be deprecated.
If you need to track your subscribers stats like CTR, then you might want to start looking around for alternative systems.
What Are The Options?
- You might want to read about Jetpacks email subscription service. (No Stats)
- Another option would be to use a premium service like MailChimp or Aweber for your email subscribers.
- Or you could import your Feedburner list to a free RSS service like Feedblitz, although they do charge for email subscribers.
- Setup Google Analytic’s for Feed stats.
Tracking Feed Clicks
Google Analytics enables you to track clicks from your Feedburner feed.
Even Feedburner itself includes a limited Feed Stats Dashboard and Popular Feed Items section displaying basic click stats.
To activate tracking of your RSS feed clicks in Google Analytics, follow these simple steps.
Under the Analyze tab in your Feedburner account, you find a link to Configure Stats.
Click the Configure Stats link and enable Google Analytics to track your feed clicks as a traffic source.
New To Blogging?
If you’re new to creating & publishing content using a content management system like WordPress, you may still want to setup Feedburner to manage the distribution of your content.
You can always export your email subscribers from Feedburner and import them into another service at a later date.
I’ll be posting more updates on the situation with Feedburner as news is released so stay tuned.
Do you use Feedburner or an alternative service for managing & tracking your RSS & email subscribers?
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This is no big surprise and actually makes sense. Feedburner stats need to be taken with a grain of salt. The penetration of activity related to subscriptions have always seemed pretty suspect, as folks accumulate feeds and lose interest or generally move on to something else. On top of that, there is a lot of gaming the system to use Feedburner (among other things) rank sites.
Thanks for the feedback Jeff.
Which service do you recommend as the best for WordPress users?
Feedblitz seems to be popular for rss and rss via email