How many subscribers does your blog really have?

Let me tell you how many follow your blog in Google Reader

If you follow my blog for a while now, you've probably heard about my recent increase of traffic, which still hasn't stopped. It's slowly approaching 11.000 monthly hits (with over 20.000 page views), which is a 33% increase compared to last month. That surely can't be unnoticed by my sharp eyes, however let me stress, this is nothing compared to some other blogs out there, who deal with much higher numbers and have hundred times more hits than me. But I'm happy about small things. Even, if the numbers are humble, I'm still happy.

But something bothered me for a while now. How come my monthly hits are on the up, but the number of my blog subscribers fell enormously? I'm using Feedburner like most of the bloggers and my number of subscribers was always in the twenties. From 24 to 27 usually, only one time it was 30. I still felt the number is was small, but I hoped it would gradually increase. However in recent days my feed count chicklet was showing this ->

I thought: How can that be? My blog now has only 4 subscribers? That's impossible. And the number kept changing, one day it was 4, the next day 20, then 4 again. It pissed me off and I decided to remove it. Apart from 4 being an unlucky number for Chinese, I just felt it's a ridiculously small number and it may give new visitors to my blog a wrong impression.

I knew I have more subscribers and readers, I just needed to find a way to get the right number. So I started to Google and I came across this useful article by Chris F. Masse. He tells you how to find out the number of people, who subscribed to your blog in Google Reader, which is the easiest and most common way to follow blogs. Let me show you how I found out the real number of my subscribers:

1 First sign in to your Google Reader account.

2 Click on "Add a subscription", write your blog's name and press ENTER


3 After a short while, this will appear

My number of subscribers in Google Reader is 103!

Now that's a number I'm not ashamed of and it makes much more sense, because everything's been on the up lately, only the Feedburner feed has been going down. But let me explain why.

There can be many ways to create a blog's feed. I chose Feedburner, but it seems that my followers don't really like to subscribe to that one. They most likely just copy and paste my blog's URL http://mykafkaesquelife.blogspot.com/ into Google Reader's "Add a subscription" box and subscribe to my default feed. Hence, my Feedburner's number remained low.

But my real number currently is 103. It says a lot, but not everything about my readers. Not everyone follows or reads blogs in Google Reader, there are many other readers and other ways to follow blogs. In my case it's like this:

Default feed: 103 subscribers
Feedburner feed: Between 20-27 subscribers
Google Friend Connect/Blogger: 80 followers
Bookmarked: At least 40 people

I'm just guessing the number of people who bookmarked my blog, but I see many on my trackers who come to my blog from a simple bookmark on their browsers.

Sure, all these are numbers and I have no idea how many people really read and like my posts. Some of you give me feedback and I thank you a lot. But I've seen an increase of many silent readers, who click on almost every link I place in a post. So I guess they read my stuff, too. Thank you as well.

Your blog list

And because I'm so grateful to some of you bloggers, I decided to do the job for you and tell you how many subscribers your blog has in Google Reader on day 25. May 2010 (keep in mind, the number can change on daily basis):

She in China (Jonna) - 1351 subscribers

Notes of a Toothfairy (Shirley) - 1104 subscribers
Pop Champagne (Julie) - 704 subscribers
Bee Creative (Kym) - 583 subscribers
Calligraphy in the Landscape (Ruma) - 632 subscribers
Insomniac Lolita (Andhari) - 514 subscribers
my site... my stuff... (Fufu) - 411 subscribers

Manju Gone Blog (Maju) - 367 subscribers
As Zewt As It Gets (Zewt) - 298 subscribers
Had blog (Had) - 268 subscribers
ChinkyMel's Corner (Mel) - 233 subscribers
My Secrets (Kasia) - 215 subscribers
Karen is here! (Karen) - 161 subscribers
Inside my Bubble Today (Wenny) - 160 subscribers
Carina the Blogarina (Carina) - 158 subscribers
Jamaipanese (Kirk) - 153 subscribers
I am Krissy (Krissy) - 138 subscribers
Musings of Painted Holy Grails (Ejann) - 121 subscribers
The Mercurial Wife (Johana) - 114 subscribers
My Kafkaesque life (that's me) - 103 subscribers
Solitary Panda (Floreta) - 82 subscribers (244 on your old blog)
Where did all the pecans go? (Nashe) - 81 subscribers
Lost... in Translation (Sharon) - 79 subscribers
French Sweets (Carine) - 63 subscribers
Cup of Ice (Shingo) - 46 subscribers
Lady Angele (Angele) - 45 subscribers
The Jessicat (Jessica) - 40 subscribers (Benjicajess.com - 118)
Daisy's Mad Tea Party (Daisy) - 39 subscribers
Curious Notions (Linda) - 32 subscribers
Booby Rants! (Sabrina) - 30 subscribers
Ms. Stefbunny (Stefanie) - 24 subscribers
KitKatoholic (Kit) - 21 subscribers
Junjie's China blog (Junjie) - 20 subscribers
So Flawed (Jaimie) - 16 subscribers
Trifledreamz (Adamantixx) - 15 subsrcibers
Netster's Blog 宅男 (Netster) - 15 subscribers
Lily murmurs in English (Lily) - 13 subscribers
My Word 1 (ZACL) - 10 subscribers
Taiwan Culture Exchange (Sander) - 8 subscribers
Girl Eats World (Linda) - 7 subscribers
The Brooding Lizard (Lizzy) - 5 subscribers
Japan, Gifu, Hida-Takayama (Saša) - 4 subscribers

UPDATE: Carina told me, that there's another (easier) way to find out the number of subscribers. Just sign in to your Google Reader, chose a blog and then in your upper right corner click on details. The number should be there :-) Thanks, Carina

I decided to link to the top 5 blogs. Keep in mind, this is only about your Google Reader subscriptions. People can follow your blog in many other ways. Hope the info is useful to you. Now I wish you happy blogging. Cheers!

Ps: If I made a mistake and messed up your numbers, please let me know and I will correct it.