Comments on: Estimating blog feed subscribers in Drupal http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/ just a lowly edtech geek, mumble mumble university of calgary Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:41:04 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: dnorman http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82101 dnorman Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82101 heh. you're doing better than me. my folks are vaguely aware that I have a website, but I think they might see it maybe once a year, if I send them a link via email... heh. you’re doing better than me. my folks are vaguely aware that I have a website, but I think they might see it maybe once a year, if I send them a link via email…

]]> By: fgm http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82161 fgm Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82161 Apparently you didn't even consider the feed on /rss.xml , while on my own blog this is the most requested URL.<br /><br />Is it significant on yours too ?<br /> Apparently you didn't even consider the feed on /rss.xml , while on my own blog this is the most requested URL.

Is it significant on yours too ?

]]> By: JMaddrell http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82195 JMaddrell Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82195 <p>Thank you for the heads up!  I really enjoy following your commentary re: Drupal.  I've learned a lot of new tricks reading your posts and just downloaded xStatistics based on the link you provided.  If correct, I have 3000% more RSS subscribers than I thought (61 as shown in the summary vs my mom + me) </p><p>Sincerly,</p><p>Your RSS subscriber #963 <img src="/modules/tinymce/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-tongue-out.gif" border="0" alt="Tongue out" title="Tongue out" /> </p> Thank you for the heads up!  I really enjoy following your commentary re: Drupal.  I've learned a lot of new tricks reading your posts and just downloaded xStatistics based on the link you provided.  If correct, I have 3000% more RSS subscribers than I thought (61 as shown in the summary vs my mom + me)

Sincerly,

Your RSS subscriber #963 Tongue out

]]> By: greggles http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82198 greggles Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82198 <p>What Ber said.</p><p> Although my test for a "feed reader" is if they have visited the site multiple times in the period such as more than 5 times over a two week period since it seems safe to say that most subscribers would check at least every other work day.</p><p>And of course the user agent could be very helpful in this, for example if you could ignore the bots and search engines. </p><p>Some other ideas: </p><p> select count(1), hostname from accesslog where path like '%feed%' or path like '%rss%' group by hostname;</p><p>Gives me 500 records on one particular site:</p><p>select count(1), hostname from accesslog where path like '%feed%' or path like '%rss%' group by hostname having count(1) > 5;</p><p>Looking for cases where they have pulled down the page more than 5 times gives me 73 subscribers.  Looking for more than 10 brings it down to 51.</p> What Ber said.

 Although my test for a "feed reader" is if they have visited the site multiple times in the period such as more than 5 times over a two week period since it seems safe to say that most subscribers would check at least every other work day.

And of course the user agent could be very helpful in this, for example if you could ignore the bots and search engines. 

Some other ideas:

 select count(1), hostname from accesslog where path like '%feed%' or path like '%rss%' group by hostname;

Gives me 500 records on one particular site:

select count(1), hostname from accesslog where path like '%feed%' or path like '%rss%' group by hostname having count(1) > 5;

Looking for cases where they have pulled down the page more than 5 times gives me 73 subscribers.  Looking for more than 10 brings it down to 51.

]]> By: Bèr Kessels http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82199 Bèr Kessels Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82199 Looks good. Though I am not a SQL guru at all, your "having count" looks interesting. But what does the (1) mean? Do you refer to the first column that way? If we can add a time-frame to that query it should be much more representative then what we have now. With a timeframe I am thinking about: Host X visited a path more then 3 times in the last three days. That would rule out people who have a large lag set (i.e. check that feed only once a week) but it would exclude most of the bots. Looks good. Though I am not a SQL guru at all, your “having count” looks interesting.

But what does the (1) mean? Do you refer to the first column that way?
If we can add a time-frame to that query it should be much more representative then what we have now. With a timeframe I am thinking about: Host X visited a path more then 3 times in the last three days.
That would rule out people who have a large lag set (i.e. check that feed only once a week) but it would exclude most of the bots.

]]> By: Anonymous http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82200 Anonymous Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82200 <p>Also many folks will subscribe through an aggrating feed (i.e. <a href="http://drupal.org/planet">Planet Drupal</a>). </p><p>How many take that route may be hard to gauge without going into drupal.org logs. <br /></p> Also many folks will subscribe through an aggrating feed (i.e. Planet Drupal).

How many take that route may be hard to gauge without going into drupal.org logs.

]]> By: Bèr Kessels http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82201 Bèr Kessels Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82201 <a href="http://drupal.org/project/xstatistics">Xstatsistics</a> has theis feature built in. The code needs more smartness though, but it is a few steps ahead of your code above :) I'd love to see some improvements to the SQL and/or the code, most notably, we should investigate if certain IP hit the urls */feed/* with patterns. For example every hour, or every 15 minutes, every 56minutes etc. Xstatsistics has theis feature built in. The code needs more smartness though, but it is a few steps ahead of your code above :)

I’d love to see some improvements to the SQL and/or the code, most notably, we should investigate if certain IP hit the urls */feed/* with patterns. For example every hour, or every 15 minutes, every 56minutes etc.

]]> By: dnorman http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82202 dnorman Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82202 Doug - the bikeride must be contagious. another TLC staffer started riding yesterday :-) fgm - oops. forgot about that! There's another 1213 subscribers. Sneaky subscribers, hiding behind rss.xml... Bér - xstatistics looks really handy (and lightweight - I like that. not overdone with graphs and the like. nice). According to XStatistics, I have 2062 feed subscribers. Holy crap. Doug – the bikeride must be contagious. another TLC staffer started riding yesterday :-)

fgm – oops. forgot about that! There’s another 1213 subscribers. Sneaky subscribers, hiding behind rss.xml…

Bér – xstatistics looks really handy (and lightweight – I like that. not overdone with graphs and the like. nice).

According to XStatistics, I have 2062 feed subscribers. Holy crap.

]]> By: Doug Symington http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82215 Doug Symington Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82215 <p>No boggle about it. </p><p>This is a fantastic space; all the more for those even remotely interested in Drupal, and how to make it <em>sing</em>. </p><p>Heck, you've even been known to goad the odd character into biking to work on occasion. </p><p> </p> No boggle about it.

This is a fantastic space; all the more for those even remotely interested in Drupal, and how to make it sing.

Heck, you've even been known to goad the odd character into biking to work on occasion.

 

]]> By: greggles http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/08/15/estimating-blog-feed-subscribers-in-drupal/#comment-82249 greggles Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 1229415871#comment-82249 <p>You can include any value in the select and it will come out for every row in the set, so the (1) is just a very short item to associate with each row.  In some sql engines count(1) is (or was) faster than count(*) or count(id) so I got in the habit of doing it.</p><p>The "having" operator is very powerful - basically allowing you to do a "where" on a column that is in an aggregate function.  Fun!   </p><p>To get the "more than 35 requests in 3 days" it's just a matter of   select count(1), hostname from accesslog where path like '%feed%' or path like '%rss%' and timestamp >= %d group by hostname having count(1) > 3", (time()-259200).<br /></p> You can include any value in the select and it will come out for every row in the set, so the (1) is just a very short item to associate with each row.  In some sql engines count(1) is (or was) faster than count(*) or count(id) so I got in the habit of doing it.

The "having" operator is very powerful – basically allowing you to do a "where" on a column that is in an aggregate function.  Fun!   

To get the "more than 35 requests in 3 days" it's just a matter of   select count(1), hostname from accesslog where path like '%feed%' or path like '%rss%' and timestamp >= %d group by hostname having count(1) > 3", (time()-259200).

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