Feedburner Help: Redirecting Old Feeds

BLOGitse wrote to me asking how to get readers to update their subscription to reflect her new platform’s RSS feed. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about blogging it’s that as loveable as they are, you cannot depend on your readers to take action and update their contact information, bookmarks or RSS feeds. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they’re busy, suddenly you’re no longer updating and they don’t have time to figure out why.

Whenever possible, you need to help out your readers by redirecting the old feed to the new URL automatically. If you’re hosting everything on your own server, you can redirect via .htaccess fairly easily. (Just do a Google search).

If your old blog is set up on Feedburner, it’s even easier. If you’re not using Feedburner for your RSS subscriptions – you should. It’s powerful and there are many benefits. Go sign up and follow directions to install for your blogging platform.

If you’re already set up in Feedburner, you have a couple of options. Just navigate to your feed’s dashboard and take note of the links right below the title.

1. Edit Feed Details: Under this setting, you can change your old original feed URL to point to your new original feed URL. I do NOT recommend changing Feed URL, ever – unless you’re just setting up your blog. I think this might unsubscribe everyone and make them resubscribe to the new URL. How easy and non-threatening is this method of redirecting your subscribers to your new feed?
2. Delete Feed: Ohhhh, kinda scary. Or maybe not. It depends on how attached you are to that feed’s stats. If you take this action, Feedburner will automatically redirect your old feed to a new URL for 30 days. The subscribers are still going to have to sign up under your new feed, but you can warn them it’s coming. I like this option because it puts all stats under one account, but you still run the risk of losing subscribers.

Do you have any easy feed tips for moving sites or platforms?