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There’s been a lot of hoohaa recently in the blogging world about the new way to game people: RSS Feeds. A company by the name of RSSxplosion or RSSjaculation or some other mildly innuendostic name are promoting services where they will increase the amount of RSS Subscribers you have. Not readers, but just raw figures.
Anyway, unsurprisingly, bloggers are up in arms about this. Here are three posts that explain this a billion times better than I can be bothered to do.
- Cashquests: Pay To Increase Your Subscriber Count
- John Cow: This Months Stupid Cow Award
- Blogging Fingers’ Good Name Tainted by an RSS Gaming Con Man
Pretty shady service, don’t you agree? This dude hasn’t endeared himself to the blogging world, and he hasn’t endeared himself to me. So, as the Moral White Knight of the blogging world, I’m going to explain the techniques this dude does for free, so if you actually feel like you want to inflate your ego, you can.
Disclaimer: I really don’t actually reccommend you do this, as you’ll probably piss off a lot of people, and legally questionable if you sell advertising. I’m also not doing it myself, but it’s there for everybody should they want to.
1. Buy A Domain and Set Up E-Mail Forwarding
Simple one, but you do need a domain. Any domain will do. Nice, cheap and easy. Rather like a virgin hooker. Unlike a night with a hooker though, make sure the email from the domain actually goes somewhere, as you’ll need it later.
2. Subscribe To Feedburner & Set Up E-Mail Subscriptions
Most people are alreay on this, but if you’re not, you should be. It’s a great way for managing your RSS Feed, and they give you stats and other cool features. One of these is the E-Mail Setup, that allows you to Subscribe Via Email. It’s hidden in “Publicize -> E-Mail Subscription” on the Feedburner site.
3. Subscribe a@yourdomain.com, b@yourdomain.com, c@yourdomain.com via e-mail to your feed
Yes, it’s the hard work bit. By simply subscribing as many beginning strings to the the domain mentioned in 1 as you can be bothered, you can increase your subscribers by a huge amount, easily 50 or 60 people before boredom sets in.
So, that’s how you do it. Immoral, borderline illegal if you’re selling adverts (you know, false representation), and really not worth any money. So, if you are to pay for a service like this, don’t bother. It’s only a number!
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay.
Or, you could simply make a copy of that feedburner widgety thing (the one you’ve got as the image for this entry) and then use some php magic to generate a new number every day as big as you like. Of course, you then link it back to your feedburner feed for effect and tada.. a fake amount of readers.
Not that I’m condoning that sort of behaviour or anything – get yourself some real readers!
I like jem’s idea, I might make a gif tht says
3654543547354442111111
8748453215343312131354
4444111312354514 readers
genius and free
That is one way to do it, I guess.
Fortunately it isn’t the same way we do it @ RSSXplosion.
That would take forever!