September 7, 2008

The Troubles with Google FeedBurner

Migrating FeedBurner to Google Accounts hasn't been a smooth process and the new FeedBurner doesn't look very promising. Last month, Google officially launched AdSense for Feeds and asked those who want to join the program to "burn" their feeds using FeedBurner. If you were already using FeedBurner, Google provided an email address where you could contact a Google employee to manually migrate your account (since then, the email address has been replaced by a form).

After a day or two, FeedBurner's new home at feedburner.google.com finally allowed you to log in. Some people found that the number of subscribers dropped to 0, but the most visible changes were the features which have been removed. The Googlified FeedBurner no longer includes web stats probably because of the overlap with Google Analytics, the feed stats history isn't available and you can no longer manage the list of email subscribers.

Another strange issue is that Google Blog Search stopped indexing this blog and many other blogs after migrating to the new FeedBurner. There are many other bugs related to this transition, but FeedBurner failed to acknowledge them.



Update. In about 2 weeks, Google has addressed some of the issues:
* Blog Search indexes feeds
* you can manage the list of email subscribers (there's even a new option to filter that list)
at

19 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 7, 2008 at 2:05 PM

    Well that's just put me off using Google for this... Feedburner has been working well for me for 4 years now... I can't afford for Google to suddenly screw it up, extra ad revenue or not!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 7, 2008 at 5:00 PM

    Honestly are you surprised? It's Google, this is what they do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. GrahamSeptember 7, 2008 at 5:26 PM

    Any word when FeedSmith will be updated so it can be used with the new feedproxy addresses?

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2008 at 2:15 AM

    A shame. I used to love feedburner and thought the people who created it had a truly innovative and useful service. No more.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2008 at 3:14 AM

    I have plenty of problems too. The form to subscribe via email doesn't work anymore, my subscribers count is half of what it was ... a disaster .... and they do not reply to my emails anymore .... :(

    ReplyDelete
  6. புருனோ BrunoSeptember 8, 2008 at 8:06 AM

    For me there were no problems (not that many people ready my blog :) :))

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousSeptember 8, 2008 at 12:35 PM

    Were you able to fix the Google Blog Search Indexing issues, since I saw the entry for 7th september being index. If you did please let us know since I am facing the same problem

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alex ChituSeptember 8, 2008 at 12:44 PM

    @Keith:
    The post you noticed in Google Blog Search comes from feedup.com, not from my feed.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mayuresh KaduSeptember 10, 2008 at 6:02 AM

    So what does one do for feeds that have subscribers dropped to zero?? I for one have been continuing to use my old feeds

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2008 at 2:42 PM

    One week later, I am still waiting for the emails to work on my feed ... 2000 subscribers are waiting for it .... a disaster ....

    ReplyDelete
  11. Alex ChituSeptember 18, 2008 at 2:22 AM

    FeedBurner changed the robots.txt file, so Google Blog Search should index the feeds again.

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousNovember 23, 2008 at 3:39 AM

    I have no more problems

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousJanuary 27, 2009 at 1:56 AM

    I have plenty of problems too. The form to subscribe via email doesn't work anymore, my subscribers count is half of what it was ... a disaster .... and they do not reply to my emails anymore .... :(

    ReplyDelete
  14. Peter GreeneJanuary 28, 2009 at 5:32 AM

    This changeover is a freakin' disaster. What's particularly annoying is the total silence of google and feedburner folks. No support, no explanations, no nothing. Though there is a lovely google help group where all the people who have had their stuff screwed up can go and share all the questions they can't get answers to.

    What a great way to screw up a great service. My opinion of google has plummeted over this debacle.

    ReplyDelete
  15. KathyFebruary 4, 2009 at 4:00 PM

    I tried migrating a couple weeks ago and I still have the dreaded “URI already in use” error. So now I’m in limbo. My Feedburner feeds still update, but on Feb 28, I fear I’m out of luck.

    I’ve written numerous messages pleading for help in the Google forums, but they don’t respond at all. I’m at a complete loss as to what to do. This may be the end of my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  16. KathyFebruary 5, 2009 at 2:00 AM

    UPDATE: I got a message from Google that my feeds were finally fixed. I don't know exactly which pleading message, in which venue, was the impetus for the fix. Just glad they finally got to me. What a nightmare, though.

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousMarch 22, 2009 at 8:49 AM

    I have lost my subscribers! And do not know how to contact any one to find out what is going on!! Help!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousMarch 28, 2009 at 2:35 AM

    help...

    ReplyDelete
  19. UnknownOctober 29, 2009 at 2:16 PM

    I've tried to test the 'Email Subscriptions' in Google FeedBurner using a Google RSS feed from a Google site. ALL Google. None of the subscribed email accounts have received any email updates whatsoever even though the RSS has been updated. Tried changing the 'Delivery Schedule' option, but to no avail.

    ReplyDelete

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