5 Best FeedBurner Alternatives For Your WordPress Blog

5 Best FeedBurner Alternatives For Your WordPress Blog

In late May 2011 Google announced that they would be shutting down the Feedburner API on Oct. 20, 2012. Google has not announced that it will close down the FeedBurner service, although their recent shudown of the FeedBurner Twitter account has given many cause for concern.

What’s this all about?! If the FeedBurner service isn’t going anywhere, why would they deactivate its Twitter account? If you are using the service to burn several dozen feeds or more, the mere hint of having to migrate your subscribers should prompt you to have a backup plan.

What does this mean for your WordPress site?

Many WordPress plugins make use of the Feedburner API to publicly display Feedburner stats, interact with FeedBurner feeds, services and stored analytics. These plugins will no longer work to bring information to your WordPress site, though the service itself will still be active.

Why do I need a feed burning service?

Great question! It’s not like your feed doesn’t exist if you’re not using a feed delivery service. However, if you want to keep track of who has subscribed to your RSS feed and where they’re coming from, then you’ll need to make sure that you’re hooked up to a feed delivery service that will provide you with that information. Some are paid and others are free.

Though FeedBurner has long been the go-to service for burning your blog’s feed, it’s not the only option available. The WordPress codex has an entire section devoted to using FeedBurner but unfortunately it doesn’t mention any alternatives. Perhaps it’s been a long time since you explored feed delivery services. We’ve done a little research for you and have created a list of some of the best options for delivering your WordPress blog feed to subscribers.

Feedblitz


Feedblitz is a commercial service that handles RSS feeds and email marketing. It works seamlessly with WordPress blogs and offers unlimited subscribers, lists, unlimited messages, surveys, custom fields, autoresponders, and RSS. Feedblitz markets itself as a FeedBurner alternative and is the service that most closely compares to FeedBurner’s features.

Feedcat

FREE EBOOK
Your step-by-step roadmap to a profitable web dev business. From landing more clients to scaling like crazy.

By downloading this ebook I consent to occasionally receive emails from WPMU DEV.
We keep your email 100% private and do not spam.

FREE EBOOK
Plan, build, and launch your next WP site without a hitch. Our checklist makes the process easy and repeatable.

By downloading this ebook I consent to occasionally receive emails from WPMU DEV.
We keep your email 100% private and do not spam.

Feedcat is a free service for promoting your feed and measuring your audience. It provides an easily readable version of your feed with many subscription options displayed through the Feedcat button. Boosted feeds from Feedcat contain valid xml syntax, are more user-friendly and lessen the load on your servers. The Feedcat also serves as a public catalog of feeds RSS and ATOM feeds. Your boosted feed can be tagged and searched.

RapidFeeds


The RapidFeeds service has been providing complete RSS Feed management solutions to publishers since 2005. They provide support for podcasting and iTunes, branded feed URLs, advanced statistics, scheduling and auto-tweeting feed updates, password-protected feeds and much more.

Feedity

Feedity is a service that lets you instantly create RSS feeds for your website, external webpages or podcast episodes.It has several plans for varying needs, including a free trial for evaluation purposes, which includes: 5 feeds, 24 hours update interval, 10 items per feed and ads in feeds.

FeedStats WordPress Plugin

FeedStats is a WordPress plugin provides simple stats regarding your RSS feed and displays them in the dashboard. It comes with a few options to customize:

  • Amount of days that is supposed to be saved in the statistics.
  • Minimum level of WordPress-user, who is allowed to see the statistics.
  • Time of a stay/visit (1hour values 3600seconds is common but might be changed)
  • Visitors onlinetime (5minutes value 300s is a recommendation)
  • IP not to be saved, ex.: your own IP

While its features are definitely not as comprehensive as FeedBurner, it could be a solution for those of you who only need the basic info on your feed.

If blog as part of your profession or for your business, then you needs easy access to your feed’s circulation numbers in order to get an idea of how far your influence extends. Don’t ignore this aspect of your publishing. I’m not advocating leaving the FeedBurner service if you’re a current user, but if you’re worried about how long it will be available, then you may want to look into a more stable alternative.

Tags: