My RSS Subscriber flatline explained

By glblguy

Heart Monitor
Photo by: brykmantra

Ever since I rolled out my new theme, I’ve noticed that my RSS subscriber count seemed to flatline. I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks trying to figure out why, explaining it away to the holidays, normal feedburner fluctuations, etc.

I finally decided to ask my M-Network buddies for their help and plonkee found the problem immediately. Seems my fancy new RSS graphic wasn’t working in Internet Explorer 6 and readers couldn’t subscribe! That would explain it huh? I knew from one of readers (Rob) that the subscription count wasn’t displaying correctly in IE6, but had no idea clicking on the RSS graphic did nothing. I’ve changed the RSS graphic to a more standard format until I can figure out why IE6 doesn’t like my more fancy version.

My apologies to those that were trying to subscribe and couldn’t. I’ve been blogging long enough to know I should check my blog in IE after making any changes (I use Firefox). Tough reminder and I feel incredibly stupid right now.

I had set myself a goal of having at least 500 subscribers by the end of the year. It would seem I’ve potentially shot myself in the foot on being able to achieve that goal, but if you would like to help or were unable to subscribe before, please subscribe away!

If you are reading this and wondering what the heck RSS is and what subscribe means you can read more about RSS here. It’s basically a way of getting Gather Little by Little content sent to you as soon as it’s published without having to visit the site. I read all of my favorite blogs using Google Reader via RSS. You can also subscribe via email and get my latest content sent to your inbox.

Thanks again to plonkee for finding the problem!

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8 Responses (including trackbacks) to “My RSS Subscriber flatline explained”

  1. Millionaire Money Habits Says:
    December 21st, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Bummer! Thanks for the reminder to check my site.

    I try to subscribe to my own site through all the popular readers and use several browsers to make sure posts and images aren’t out of whack.

    It’s a good idea to sign up for your own email subscription too just to make sure that is coming through clearly.

  2. glblguy Says:
    December 21st, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    Ah, now signing up for email subscriptions is something I haven’t done. I’ll do that now! Thanks for the suggestion.

  3. Aaron Stroud Says:
    December 21st, 2007 at 2:03 pm

    glblguy, I found your blog via the money blog network’s forum. So you’re one step closer to your goal.

  4. glblguy Says:
    December 21st, 2007 at 2:18 pm

    Hi Aaron. Glad you found me. Thanks!

  5. Justin Says:
    January 1st, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    You have to love IE and it’s brokenness.

  6. glblguy Says:
    January 1st, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    @Justin – It just makes web development such a pain! IE7 is far better though…still not Firefox, but better.

  7. Justin Says:
    January 1st, 2008 at 7:59 pm

    re IE and standards and web development: That’s the point, MS wants you to develop for IE and only for IE, so they make their own standards. At least when IE6 came about, that’s how it was.

  8. Bobster Says:
    July 19th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

    I love reading the emails after a long day at work! It gives me inspiration to keep going and not giving up on my goals. I do have the igoogle reader for a couple but honestly just prefer reading my emails.
    Thanks for all you do!
    Bobbi

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