Shady Services and Faking Social Proof
Recently there have been a lot of subscriber count inflating scams going around. It seems people are so desperate to boost their perceived value they are willing to display artificial numbers to get it.
Yes, subscriber counts do offer social proof and provide a perception of quality, but they are not a replacement for real authority and valuable content! Certainly not worth paying a dollar per fake subscriber like some services are charging.
If you are considering any of these shady count boosting scams, consider:
- What will the brand new subscriber, taken in by the fake social proof think when they read your content?
- Inflating your subscriber count to get a better sale price? What will the buyer say when they find none of the subscribers are active?
- Don’t you think that people look for other signs of proof? A high subscriber count on a lousy blog is like a hobo wearing a Rolex
The value comes from the number of people who are ready and willing to read your content every day. If you are just showing a false number, why pay for it? Just create your own feedburner graphic.
Believe me, 100 loyal subscribers is far more worthwhile than 10k fake subscribers, even taking into account social proof.
Keep adding valuable content and promote it ethically. Network your niche and ensure your theme is setup to promote your subscription options. Let the subscribers come naturally because you provide value and they will stick around and bring friends 
Matt Jones | November 16th, 2007 at 8:24 am #
Couldn’t agree more. Everyone who is considering using a shady RSS boosting service should read this post.
Kevin | November 16th, 2007 at 12:09 pm #
I agree, I don’t see any real benefit from inflating your feed rank. Of course, there are always those who look for a short term fix to what should be a long term plan.
Chris Garrett | November 16th, 2007 at 2:00 pm #
@Matt - Unfortunately I think the types to fall for it are not the types to do their research
@Kevin - Yeah, there seems to be a lot more short term thinking around, the instant-win culture
Andy Boyd | November 17th, 2007 at 7:27 am #
While some will be doing this now to help get new advertisers onboard, I think we’re going to see this continue for one main reason: SERPs.
IMO Google acquired Feedburner so they can integrate the number of feed subscribers as a metric for quality and trust into their algorithm.
Chris Garrett | November 17th, 2007 at 7:32 am #
I think Google will be able to detect the majority of these scams. I know I could write an algorithm that would catch 99.9% so a company with so many PHDs would have zero problem