The Difference Between Web Site Metrics and RSS Metrics
Wondering how RSS Metrics differs from regular web site metrics? So are a lot of new RSS feed publishers. Before I answer this question, let's assume a couple of things. Firstly, let's assume that your RSS feed lives on the same web server as your regular web site. Secondly, let's also assume that you have a raw RSS XML file for your RSS feed (as opposed to generating the RSS XML feed using a web script).
Now it's a bit easier to answer the above question. RSS Metrics follows the same general principles used for regular web site metrics. However, the content in question is typically a subset of the entire web site. You are only concerned with visitor statistics associated with both your RSS XML file and to the full-text web page(s) associated with your RSS content items.
Say for the sake of simplicity that you are maintaining an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) RSS feed in a raw XML file. The content does not change very often, and you have given general permission for other web sites to "syndicate" your FAQ content.
Let's start with RSS metrics that you can data mine from your web server, then (in a later blog post) worry about other sites that use your content. Assume that you have 50 items in your FAQ and you do not expect that to change in the future. (Maybe a particular item might be edited for content, but no items will be added or deleted.) Furthermore, let's say that each FAQ item has a full-text description on its own web page on your site. So now we are interested in the metrics for the raw XML file and 50 other URLs - possibly HTML pages, possibly dynamically generated pages.
So using your favorite web metrics program, view statistics for the 51 URLs in question and you'll have the RSS metrics for your feed. But now consider a couple of "filter" factors: Any given subscriber to your feed may repeatedly refresh/update your RSS channel in their feed reader. This will skew your statistics. Some people like to update their channels hourly, some less frequently. I do mine twice a day out of habit, or more if I am searching for specific info.
How you interpret your metrics depends on what it means to you. If you, for example, want to consider my two refreshes daily as two visits, that's up to you. But what's probably more valuable is to determine how many unique visitors used your feed on a particular day. And the technique to determine this is no different than for any web site. You just count the number of unique IP addresses that accessed the raw XML file representing your RSS feed.
And now that you have this "# of unique visitors for today" metric, you might also be interested in which full-text "details" pages each visitor (or all of them collectively) visited today. Again, this is accomplished in the same manner as determining the daily access count by visitor for a single web page.
To summarize, then, RSS Metrics focuses on a smaller set of pages than the typical site metrics report. That's oversimplifying, given the simple scenario presented here, but hopefully this has given you a basic insight into RSS metrics. Feel free to post comments or questions.
Now it's a bit easier to answer the above question. RSS Metrics follows the same general principles used for regular web site metrics. However, the content in question is typically a subset of the entire web site. You are only concerned with visitor statistics associated with both your RSS XML file and to the full-text web page(s) associated with your RSS content items.
Say for the sake of simplicity that you are maintaining an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) RSS feed in a raw XML file. The content does not change very often, and you have given general permission for other web sites to "syndicate" your FAQ content.
Let's start with RSS metrics that you can data mine from your web server, then (in a later blog post) worry about other sites that use your content. Assume that you have 50 items in your FAQ and you do not expect that to change in the future. (Maybe a particular item might be edited for content, but no items will be added or deleted.) Furthermore, let's say that each FAQ item has a full-text description on its own web page on your site. So now we are interested in the metrics for the raw XML file and 50 other URLs - possibly HTML pages, possibly dynamically generated pages.
So using your favorite web metrics program, view statistics for the 51 URLs in question and you'll have the RSS metrics for your feed. But now consider a couple of "filter" factors: Any given subscriber to your feed may repeatedly refresh/update your RSS channel in their feed reader. This will skew your statistics. Some people like to update their channels hourly, some less frequently. I do mine twice a day out of habit, or more if I am searching for specific info.
How you interpret your metrics depends on what it means to you. If you, for example, want to consider my two refreshes daily as two visits, that's up to you. But what's probably more valuable is to determine how many unique visitors used your feed on a particular day. And the technique to determine this is no different than for any web site. You just count the number of unique IP addresses that accessed the raw XML file representing your RSS feed.
And now that you have this "# of unique visitors for today" metric, you might also be interested in which full-text "details" pages each visitor (or all of them collectively) visited today. Again, this is accomplished in the same manner as determining the daily access count by visitor for a single web page.
To summarize, then, RSS Metrics focuses on a smaller set of pages than the typical site metrics report. That's oversimplifying, given the simple scenario presented here, but hopefully this has given you a basic insight into RSS metrics. Feel free to post comments or questions.
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