6 ms·

Please do not use Feedburner service

63 points by urlwolf 14y ago

freshhawk 14y ago
Why? Just because every other time people gave complete control over their data and content it turned out be a bad idea and the the internet itself was invented to avoid this problem? But it's different now, the companies involved are the ones I've read about since I was young and are therefore trustworthy and permanent. I know older people thought the same thing and turned out to be wrong every single time, but this time it's different. Why is it different? Uh ... I'll get back to you on that.
beambot 14y ago
I've never seen this happen -- at least with CNAME'd feeds. Can anyone else confirm?
- dchest 14y ago
  This is an option that allows tracking clicks on the links. I believe it was turned off by default when I signed up. http://i.imgur.com/MqMBS.png http://i.imgur.com/MqMBS.png
yifanlu 14y ago
Is there some kind of analytics service that google provides with this? If so, can you turn it off?
- dchest 14y ago
  Yes and yes. The whole reason for existence of FeedBurner is analytics. The links are used to track clicks; you can turn it off.
icebraining 14y ago
Two minute search: http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-in-your-rss-feed/ http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-... TL;DR: disable click tracking.
- wangarific 14y ago
  Glad I could help!
- derefr 14y ago
  It isn't even on by default. I signed up recently (just remembering that Feedburner did this thing with feed statistics, not knowing that they had removed the API) and it had a specific warning along the lines of "enabling this option will modify the content of your feed"
desbest 14y ago
I prefer Feedburner links because all they do is redirect. I have no problems with the t.co redirect that Twitter has. It's the same thing.
caseysoftware 14y ago
The same applies to all of the link shorteners too. I've often wondered how much of the web would break if TinyUrl and Bit.ly closed.
- graue 14y ago
  This kind of already happened, in 2009: the URL shortener tr.im closed. Once in a while I still run across a broken tr.im link. https://www.macworld.com/article/1142188/trim_twitter.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1142188/trim_twitter.html
- kmfrk 14y ago
  There are many reasons not to use shorteners. There is also the matter of tracking where anyone can do everything to protect people's privacy, but if they got there through an URL-shortener, they're SOL. I often think about the implications of using Google Analytics on my sites (I use the less unsafe anonymity IP detection"), but those concerns all go out the window, if they got there by shorturl.
- Evbn 14y ago
  I am surprised that third-party URL shorteners aren't time-limited by default. Why would you use a short URL for a long-lived link?
geargrinder 14y ago
By all means provide an RSS feed on your site. But Feedburner can help get your pages indexed in Google (and other search engines).
- rhizome 14y ago
  Is that difficult without Feedburner?
pbiggar 14y ago
Zero evidence, no credible reason not to use it. Suggesting that Google might sell feedburner to someone who then shuts it down is laughable.
- eli 14y ago
  Is it? Google does not seem to be spending any resources on improving the product and they recently disabled the ability to show ads in your feed (which is presumably the whole reason Google got into this business in the first place).
- aneth4 14y ago
  That rather shortsighted. All companies, as well as governments, eventually hit financial trouble, and some day fail. Google has shut down many services and "broke the internet" before - what they essentially did with Reader. Even if it takes 100 years, we don't want the internet archives to be broken.
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    I think it's shortsighted to design your architecture for Google failing as a company. Google will be around far longer than either of us. I'm not sure what you mean about Reader though?
gkoberger 14y ago
It seems weird that he uses blog-centric companies (TechCrunch, etc) as examples of companies that do, and non-blog-centric companies (GitHub, etc) as examples that don't. TechCrunch/etc cares about the statistics FeedBurner offers since that is their core product, whereas GitHub/etc probably don't care that much.
- james-skemp 14y ago
  Exactly right. I think the post is wrong, so I might be bias, but the examples were rather lacking.
Roelven 14y ago
This is a bit of an old discussion. I think it's a fair tradeoff for content-centric companies to have feedburner (now google) rewrite those links to get some very useful stats in return. This was already happening pre-acquisition and only got better afterwards. Links get indexed quicker and get submitted to reader / google news for free.
stevencorona 14y ago
Does anyone have any experience with some FeedBurner competitors that they'd recommend? I'd be happy to pay.
- rcaroe 14y ago
  I work at FeedBlitz and we have support (giant improvement over FeedBurner), analytics, integration with other social media for RSS distribution, easy-to-enable triggers and parsers to make the RSS part of integrated marketing communications.
Matt_Cutts 14y ago
I debunked this months ago here on Hacker News: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215474 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215474 Here's more info: http://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/79590?hl=en http://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/79590?hl=en The short version is that FeedBurner has a free feature called MyBrand which serves your feeds from a CNAME of your own domain. Then if you choose to leave FeedBurner, you still have full control of your feeds and permalinks. I set it up on my own domain years ago as feeds.mattcutts.com, for example. I think this free feature of FeedBurner is one that everyone should use so that you keep feeds under your own control and served off your own domain.
- davenaff 14y ago
  If I recall correctly, as an independent company Feedburner charged a modest fee for CNAME feeds. Once Google acquired Feedburner, Google made the feature free. I'm pretty sure the consumer got a nice win here.
- g-garron 14y ago
  Hi Matt, first thanks for getting the time to read my post, and replay. The problem I still see is that even if you have your domain the link is messed up. From your blog. http://feeds.mattcutts.com/~r/mattcutts/uJBW/~3/8IurStR5fXw/ http://feeds.mattcutts.com/~r/mattcutts/uJBW/~3/8IurStR5fXw/ Goes to http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ So if I bookmark the former, and FB dissapear you will have to create a full list of 301 redirects in your server so my links still work. Yes you have the control, but that is a lot of work. Why not make FB links like this? http://feeds.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ http://feeds.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ In that case all you have to do is a 301 of feeds to www. Hope my point is clear. Edit: never mind. Someone found this http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-in-your-rss-feed/ http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-... That way you really have all the control back.
readme 14y ago
For a serious blogger, Feedburner is a great way to reduce the traffic on your server. Many RSS readers are poorly developed and will hammer your server for no reason. Jeff Atwood wrote a great article about this a while back: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/reducing-your-websites-bandwidth-usage.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/reducing-your-websi...

63 points by urlwolf 14y ago

Why? Just because every other time people gave complete control over their data and content it turned out be a bad idea and the the internet itself was invented to avoid this problem? But it's different now, the companies involved are the ones I've read about since I was young and are therefore trustworthy and permanent. I know older people thought the same thing and turned out to be wrong every single time, but this time it's different. Why is it different? Uh ... I'll get back to you on that.

beambot 14y ago

I've never seen this happen -- at least with CNAME'd feeds. Can anyone else confirm?

dchest 14y ago
This is an option that allows tracking clicks on the links. I believe it was turned off by default when I signed up. http://i.imgur.com/MqMBS.png http://i.imgur.com/MqMBS.png

yifanlu 14y ago

Is there some kind of analytics service that google provides with this? If so, can you turn it off?

dchest 14y ago
Yes and yes. The whole reason for existence of FeedBurner is analytics. The links are used to track clicks; you can turn it off.

icebraining 14y ago

Two minute search: http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-in-your-rss-feed/ http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-... TL;DR: disable click tracking.

wangarific 14y ago
Glad I could help!
derefr 14y ago
It isn't even on by default. I signed up recently (just remembering that Feedburner did this thing with feed statistics, not knowing that they had removed the API) and it had a specific warning along the lines of "enabling this option will modify the content of your feed"

desbest 14y ago

I prefer Feedburner links because all they do is redirect. I have no problems with the t.co redirect that Twitter has. It's the same thing.

caseysoftware 14y ago

The same applies to all of the link shorteners too. I've often wondered how much of the web would break if TinyUrl and Bit.ly closed.

graue 14y ago
This kind of already happened, in 2009: the URL shortener tr.im closed. Once in a while I still run across a broken tr.im link. https://www.macworld.com/article/1142188/trim_twitter.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1142188/trim_twitter.html
kmfrk 14y ago
There are many reasons not to use shorteners. There is also the matter of tracking where anyone can do everything to protect people's privacy, but if they got there through an URL-shortener, they're SOL. I often think about the implications of using Google Analytics on my sites (I use the less unsafe anonymity IP detection"), but those concerns all go out the window, if they got there by shorturl.
Evbn 14y ago
I am surprised that third-party URL shorteners aren't time-limited by default. Why would you use a short URL for a long-lived link?

geargrinder 14y ago

By all means provide an RSS feed on your site. But Feedburner can help get your pages indexed in Google (and other search engines).

rhizome 14y ago
Is that difficult without Feedburner?

pbiggar 14y ago

Zero evidence, no credible reason not to use it. Suggesting that Google might sell feedburner to someone who then shuts it down is laughable.

eli 14y ago
Is it? Google does not seem to be spending any resources on improving the product and they recently disabled the ability to show ads in your feed (which is presumably the whole reason Google got into this business in the first place).
aneth4 14y ago
That rather shortsighted. All companies, as well as governments, eventually hit financial trouble, and some day fail. Google has shut down many services and "broke the internet" before - what they essentially did with Reader. Even if it takes 100 years, we don't want the internet archives to be broken.
- pbiggar 14y ago
  I think it's shortsighted to design your architecture for Google failing as a company. Google will be around far longer than either of us. I'm not sure what you mean about Reader though?

gkoberger 14y ago

It seems weird that he uses blog-centric companies (TechCrunch, etc) as examples of companies that do, and non-blog-centric companies (GitHub, etc) as examples that don't. TechCrunch/etc cares about the statistics FeedBurner offers since that is their core product, whereas GitHub/etc probably don't care that much.

james-skemp 14y ago
Exactly right. I think the post is wrong, so I might be bias, but the examples were rather lacking.

Roelven 14y ago

This is a bit of an old discussion. I think it's a fair tradeoff for content-centric companies to have feedburner (now google) rewrite those links to get some very useful stats in return. This was already happening pre-acquisition and only got better afterwards. Links get indexed quicker and get submitted to reader / google news for free.

stevencorona 14y ago

Does anyone have any experience with some FeedBurner competitors that they'd recommend? I'd be happy to pay.

rcaroe 14y ago
I work at FeedBlitz and we have support (giant improvement over FeedBurner), analytics, integration with other social media for RSS distribution, easy-to-enable triggers and parsers to make the RSS part of integrated marketing communications.

Matt_Cutts 14y ago

I debunked this months ago here on Hacker News: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215474 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4215474 Here's more info: http://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/79590?hl=en http://support.google.com/feedburner/answer/79590?hl=en The short version is that FeedBurner has a free feature called MyBrand which serves your feeds from a CNAME of your own domain. Then if you choose to leave FeedBurner, you still have full control of your feeds and permalinks. I set it up on my own domain years ago as feeds.mattcutts.com, for example. I think this free feature of FeedBurner is one that everyone should use so that you keep feeds under your own control and served off your own domain.

davenaff 14y ago
If I recall correctly, as an independent company Feedburner charged a modest fee for CNAME feeds. Once Google acquired Feedburner, Google made the feature free. I'm pretty sure the consumer got a nice win here.
g-garron 14y ago
Hi Matt, first thanks for getting the time to read my post, and replay. The problem I still see is that even if you have your domain the link is messed up. From your blog. http://feeds.mattcutts.com/~r/mattcutts/uJBW/~3/8IurStR5fXw/ http://feeds.mattcutts.com/~r/mattcutts/uJBW/~3/8IurStR5fXw/ Goes to http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ So if I bookmark the former, and FB dissapear you will have to create a full list of 301 redirects in your server so my links still work. Yes you have the control, but that is a lot of work. Why not make FB links like this? http://feeds.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ http://feeds.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ In that case all you have to do is a 301 of feeds to www. Hope my point is clear. Edit: never mind. Someone found this http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-in-your-rss-feed/ http://www.wangarific.com/how-to-get-rid-of-feedproxy-links-... That way you really have all the control back.

readme 14y ago

For a serious blogger, Feedburner is a great way to reduce the traffic on your server. Many RSS readers are poorly developed and will hammer your server for no reason. Jeff Atwood wrote a great article about this a while back: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/reducing-your-websites-bandwidth-usage.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/reducing-your-websi...