Comments on: Two Important Reasons to Subscribe to Your Own RSS Feeds

By: Rome

Rome — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:50:58 +0000

Thanks for this, I will now subscribe to my own feed.

By: Gerri

Gerri — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:07:55 +0000

Thanks for the tip. I’m going to go ahead and subscribe to my feeds. One of my blogs does not have too much traffic at the moment but it would still be a good idea to subscribe to its feed. Thanks for the tip.

By: Redneck Techy

Redneck Techy — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:43:43 +0000

Darren,

I completely agree. If I did not subscribe to my own blog I would never notice the multitude of errors that I as a new blogger have been making and had a quick chance to correct them.

From the expected typos to picture formating errors. It might look good to me at 12:00 a.m. when I submit it only to find out in the morning that I left out some key point.

Redneck Techy

By: netvalar

netvalar — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:11:59 +0000

I not only subscribe to my own RSS but also my blogs E-Mail and use 2 widgets from feedburner myself. This allows me to be on top of any problems and see potential improvements that I never seem to get around to doing.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:23:23 +0000

In addition to your own feed, there’s also the FeedBurner announcement feed (FeedMedic) I think, to subscribe to.

By: bmunch

bmunch — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:45:37 +0000

Thanks for justifying my Vanity Folder. Yes, I have vanity folder like you.

Now when people ask why am I subscribing to my own feed, I can tell them these “other” reasons.

By: Kelvin Kao

Kelvin Kao — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:09:06 +0000

I subscribe to my feed to see if my posts are coming through properly. I want to know what my posts look like when they are away from my website’s style sheets. Sometimes I also test other things, such as: Does the embedded video show up correctly? Does the table format come up correctly?

Facebook is not really a RSS reader, but they do have a feature that let you import your RSS feed into facebook “notes”. What I noticed was that the embedded videos won’t show so you have to include a link to it and also, tables get messed up in it, so that’s something to think about when you post.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:56:18 +0000

Great tip, and something I’ve always done. So far I’ve never had a feed break, but I’ve seen it happen with other feeds I read, especially when the site has made changes.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:50:23 +0000

Never thought of subscribing to my own feed but a good idea indeed.

By: Guardian Angel

Guardian Angel — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:40:45 +0000

Great tip! I just tried it to check if feedburner is doing its job, and it did. However, I still do not know why I keep receiving this from them, “FeedBurner had trouble retrieving your Source Feed:”. Thanks for this anyway, I learned a lot!

By: Neil Matthews

Neil Matthews — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:27:14 +0000

My subscription to my own feed showed up a mistake I had made – I posted a page as a post Doh!!

By: 66tx

66tx — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:44:32 +0000

If you have corrupt XML code, usually in the form of apostrophies, or when you copy and past an article, that will break a RSS feed. It would still appear normal on the Blog.

By: Leon

Leon — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 06:57:53 +0000

Excellent! I do the same. I use it to track comments and stats. Guess I’m closer to being a Problogger than I thought.

By: Mark Riordan

Mark Riordan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:21:25 +0000

I’m glad I found your blog. I’m just starting out blogging. I have a voice, but not a venue as such.

There are so many blogs out there offering tips/advice. I think I’ve found one I like.

Thanks
Mark.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:00:00 +0000

I subscribed to my RSS feeds the day the site was created and I am glad that I did. You get a lot of great information from this. Glad to this posted for people that have not done this.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:13:10 +0000

Also, if you have a crash and loose your last few posts since a back-up (depending on how often you make back-ups), you usually copy the html back into your posts afterwards. You may loose images and such, but sometimes it’s the only way.

By: Md Shaffir

Md Shaffir — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:37:51 +0000

Most of my feed are first been subcribe my own. I will look in the feed rather they are alive or still in abounce situation. Helps alot to see what we have been missing.

Great tip’s. Thanks

By: Marija

Marija — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:09:00 +0000

There is one more benefit from subscribing to your own RSS feed.

Some time ago I had a problem with a server (the hosting provider deleted 15 days of my posts, yeah that’s possible!). And, I found all of the texts of my missing posts in my RSS feed, and recovered the data from there (my backup didn’t work, also because of the provider).

I don’t know, maybe I could have found my lost posts even if I hadn’t been subscribed to my feed, but in this way it was easier.

BTW, subscribing to your own newsletter is also a good idea.

By: jen

jen — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:25:16 +0000

I subscribe to my own feed and have written about this myself. One thing I have found out about who the post looks in a reader compared to a blog is that if you don't use inline styles for images they don't look the same on the feed. I used to use inline styles say for my Flickr photos but now images reference my stylesheet. It doesn't bother me too much that they don't look as snazzy.

By: Moira

Moira — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:17:38 +0000

I NEVER would have thought to do this. Great suggestion and your’re a blogger guardian angel to email that blogger and let him know something was wrong. Very cool.