How to Find an Unpublished RSS Subscriber Count

Here’s a tip for snooping on other blogs: when a subscriber count isn’t visible on the site, sometimes you can find it by typing in your browser URL “http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/” plus the feed name.

This only applies to blogs that use FeedBurner. For instance, the feed count address for TechCrunch (one of the biggest blogs on the planet) is: “http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/techcrunch”. Give it a try.

In the event that a blog doesn’t publish a subscriber count, and it doesn’t use FeedBurner, you can sometimes use Google Reader as a proxy.

Just click on “+ add a subscription” in Google Reader and type in the blog name (not the blog’s URL or feed address). Google will return a list of results, including the number of people subscribed through Google Reader. This isn’t the total subscriber count, but Google Reader should represent 50% or more of total subscribers for most newer blogs.