![\"RSS\"](\"https:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/images\/200-rss.gif\")
Have you checked recently to see whether your blog's feed is valid?<\/p>\nHave you checked recently to see whether your blog's feed is valid?<\/p>\n
No?<\/p>\n
Well, consider this a cautionary tale.<\/p>\n
I stopped by Feedburner and was shocked to see that one of my blog feeds was showing exactly the same number of subscribers as it had when I last checked – a few months earlier.<\/p>\n
How could that<\/em> possibly be? I wondered. The feed had been averaging about 10 new subscribers a day until that time and according to AWSTATS, the number of site visitors had been steadily increasing since then.<\/p>\n So, I went straight to the Troubleshootize button and quickly scanned the list for the most likely suspect.<\/p>\n It wasn't problem #1. “Your FeedBurner feed isn't up-to-date with your Original Feed. The fix: Try pinging FeedBurner using our Ping page. This action tells FeedBurner to go check your feed for updates immediately.<\/em>” <\/p>\n The next option “Invalid characters or XML markup in content items, often introduced by composing your posts in Microsoft Word or embedding JavaScript code in a post<\/em>” didn't seem likely as I don't use Word to compose my posts and the only embedded javascript was the ShareThis plugin.<\/p>\n However, I still decided to check both the feeds for validity problems. <\/p>\n The Original Feed Validator confirmed that the feed was invalid by reason of a CDATA error. After poking around for a while to try and figure out what that<\/em> meant, I went back to the blog and started opening up the posts, starting with the one around the time the subscriptions stopped.<\/p>\n Sure enough, right at the top of the post was a little rectangular character that certainly didn't need to be in the message. I stripped it out, saved the post and went back to the validator.<\/p>\n This time the news was better. “Congratulations! This is a valid RSS feed<\/em>” was the result.<\/p>\n Woohoo!<\/p>\n Fortunately, because this error occured on a personal blog to which I barely post or monetize, the fact that the feed wasn't valid didn't affect my income.<\/p>\n However, it probably upset a few of those who were unable to subscribe, and that ultimately is<\/em> bad for business.<\/p>\n To avoid losing subscribers and revenue due to invalid feeds, check them often. If you use Feedburner<\/a>, the Original Feed Validator and Feedburner Feed Validator links in the Troubleshootize section will automatically input the URL at FeedValidator and run the check. Otherwise, visit FeedValidator.org<\/a> and run the check directly from there.<\/p>\n Validate your feeds today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you checked recently to see whether your blog’s feed is valid? No? Well, consider this a cautionary tale. I stopped by Feedburner and was shocked to see that one of my blog feeds was showing exactly the same number of subscribers as it had when I last checked – a few months earlier. How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[417,352,136,380],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Feed](\"https:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/images\/feedvalidator.gif\")
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