How do Aweber and FeedBlitz report subscriber numbers to Feedburner?

Question

I've looked all over for some documentation on this, but haven't found it. Some posts reference a user-agent string:

http://groups.google.com/group/feedburner-services/browse_thread/thread/7aee14cf6a2432e7/49464335d2228e25?lnk=gst&q=aweber#49464335d2228e25

I had assumed there would be an API or something. More generally, how does ANY rss feed reader/aggregator (like Bloglines, etc) report subscriber numbers to Feedburner?

I'm working on developing a new app that would need this functionality.

Thanks for your help! Brian

Answer 1

Many major aggregators report user stats by including them as part of the useragent string. Examples:

• Bloglines reporting description in blog comment
• Google Reader: Tips for Publishers
• PostRank: Reporting Subscription Counts

There's no standard for this at this time.

To the best of my knowledge, folks will contact major feed analytics vendors like Feedburner directly, to make sure their useragent-based reporting is being counted.

Answer 2

As you discovered in your link, you put the subscriber count in your user-agent, then you contact the Feedburner Support Group and tell them what format you will be using.

The consensus format is something

User-agent: Service Name (http://example.com/service/info/; ### subscribers ; [optional feed identifier] )

The optional feed identifier is typically used if you run several different services, and fetch the feed separately for each one; e.g. if you have a mail service and a web-based reader service, with different subscribers, then you might either use:

User-agent: SO Agg/1.3 (http://example.com/SOAgg ; 5000 subscribers ; feed-id=mail-134 )

on request for the mailer, and

User-agent: SO Agg/1.3 (http://example.com/SOAgg ; 2000 subscribers ; feed-id=web-134 )

on the request for the website; or use

User-agent: SO Agg/1.3 (http://example.com/SOAgg ; 7000 subscribers ;  )

if your system makes only one request for both services...

You will usually need to specify what IP addresses are authorised to request the feed with that user-agent, as well.