RSS Followers – How do I see who they are?

  • Unknown's avatar
    celiaelwell · Member ·

    Cannot see who is following by RSS feed. Are those syndicated views? What is difference between a click and a view? What is a slug on the page where I create a new post? Obviously there’s a lot I don’t know. I have the follow button. I can see the wordpress folks who follow my blog and those who sign up by email. But i know there are people who are following by RSS feed because they’ve told me so in email, but i can’t see them – or I don’t know where to go to see that. My RSS stuff on my page don’t seem to do anything.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • kraftbj · Staff ·

    Hi Celia,

    You can’t see who follows your posts via RSS (just as you can’t tell who visits your site just by typing in the address).

    RSS (short for “really simple syndication”) is a common file format that allows folks to view your site in the “feed reader” of their choice—some are online (you can actually follow non-WordPress.com RSS feeds using WordPress.com’s Reader, in addition to a number of others), while some are “offline”. Outlook, Thunderbird, and a number of other programs allow you to read a post through it without visiting a website.

    The feed readers, in a sense, grab your posts and help your readers to read it. Because there’s not one system to view RSS feeds nor one place to make an account, there’s no way to track who is following you in that way.

    Depending on context, calling those syndicated views may be correct.

    A click, in terms of WordPress.com’s stats, are links outside of your own site that folks have clicked on while reading your site.

    A view is someone actually viewing a page on your site.

    Regarding the slug: Please note that once you published a page, if you change the slug, anyone who tries to visit the former page address will get a “not found” error. To self-determine the “slug” of your post (which is what is at the end of the address, e.g. http://researchingparalegal.com/2013/11/21/this-is-the-slug/ ), first click Screen Options near the top when editing a new post or page, then check the Slug box (screenshot: http://d.pr/i/EQbz ). This only has to be done once.

    Then, you can enter the slug further down in the now-appearing Slug box: http://d.pr/i/bmZn

    If you have any other questions or need anything else, please let me know. Cheers!

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