Carrying on from last week’s epic post, let’s just jump right back into this migration!
If you had access to your FeedBurner login and worked through the steps from last week, FeedBlitz is now serving your RSS feed for you and handling your email and social media updates.
The people left over at FeedBurner are those RSS subscribers subscribing directly to the FeedBurner feed URL, as opposed to all the other mechanisms you control and have just updated.
This is true even if you were using a CNAME / MyBrand at FeedBurner; some visitors will have subscribed directly to the FeedBurner feed URL, and so changing the CNAME entry will not have affected them.
Unfortunately, people subscribing directly to the FeedBurner URL can't be moved off FeedBurner easily.
You don't know who they are (RSS and feed readers hide that data); you can only move things you control like your mailing list and third party services.
Sadly, FeedBurner doesn't have a simple, perpetual redirection option. Once you've moved everything you control over to your site and powered by FeedBlitz, there will be some people still subscribing directly to FeedBurner.
If you don't have a FeedBurner log in you can use, FeedBlitz's unique FeedBurner migration technology is the only way to migrate your FeedBurner subscribers to a supported system where you can reclaim control of your subscriber base.
Pure Readers
You're now ready to move these pure FeedBurner readers. But you have a choice to make here:
- Leave the FeedBurner feed running as is, and just ignore / hope for the best for the people left on it. Given that there's a good reason you're moving everyone else away from FeedBurner, this might not be an adequate option for you.
- Use FeedBlitz's advanced migration option, detailed below, to send different messages to people still subscribing via FeedBurner to coerce them over. This is our recommended migration path.
- Delete the FeedBurner feed, enabling the 15 / 30 day transition process they have. People who care will move during that process. Those that don't either aren't actively following you enough to pay attention; or don't care enough about your content any more to make the switch; or may have abandoned their online activity on that reader altogether. You don't – and can't – know; you simply have to accept that some people won't come over and there will be some nominal (typically quite small) "loss" of the non-engaged.
Before starting any migration (2 or 3 above), you should blog – repeatedly – about reminding people to update their RSS readers.
To automatically send a resubscribe message to FeedBurner readers without deleting the FeedBurner feed – which is what we recommend – log into FeedBlitz, pick your RSS feed from the site navigation, then click its settings button. On the page that appears, expand the "FeedBurner Migration and Compatibility" section by clicking its sign (it might be easier to see if you also collapse the topmost "Feed Settings" section). You'll see this:
The "FeedBurner Compatible" option makes FeedBlitz appear to be FeedBurner for your site, which simplifies things for your site when plugins and other settings assume that FeedBurner is all that's out there. Leave it enabled.
IMPORTANT: Do not enable the FeedBurner Migration Message for a podcast feed until you know that the iTunes service at Apple has updated the podcast with your original feed URL.
The "FeedBurner Migration" option allows you to coerce and cajole people on the FeedBurner feed to update their subscriptions. It works by telling FeedBlitz NOT to serve your posts to FeedBurner when FeedBurner accesses FeedBlitz for your content.
Instead, when enabled, FeedBlitz serves a "you need to resubscribe" message instead of your content, telling readers exactly what to do.
Anyone using FeedBurner and still wanting your content will resubscribe quickly, minimizing any subscriber loss. This is also the way to migrate people off FeedBurner if you have lost your ability to log in; see this blog post for more.
To enable this capability, first pick which feed URL you want FeedBurner subscribers to use when they resubscribe. You should use the URL on your site that FeedBlitz is serving (which may well be the 2nd option in the drop down – test it to make sure it redirects properly). If you understand DNS and CNAME, the third option may work for you.
Pick the option that is appropriate. A small window appears with default text which will be the message sent to everyone on FeedBurner instead of your posts. When you add a new post, FeedBlitz will serve everyone else with the correct content.
FeedBurner subscribers will see the post's title, but the content will be the message you see here:
If you're not OK editing HTML, leave the default as-is; or have your designer change it for you; or contact FeedBlitz tech support for help. The message should be simple and to the point.
If you switch email services, or have a new podcast URL that is different, you might want to add a line about resubscribing for these as well.
Unless you don't have access to your FeedBurner settings any more, use this approach AFTER you have migrated any email subscribers away from FeedBurner. If you do NOT have access to your FeedBurner login any more, add the link to your email form (available from the "Form Code" section of your mailing list) and add it to the code here.
If you're not quite sure what to do, please contact FeedBlitz technical support via support@feedblitz.com
Verifying That The Migration Message is Working
If you have access to your FeedBurner dashboard
- Pick the feed you are migrating from the FeedBurner dashboard.
- Click "Edit Feed Details…" upper left.
- Copy the contents of the "Original Feed" feed (it should be a URL on your site).
- In a new browser tab, paste the URL into the address bar and go to it.
- You should be taken to your FeedBlitz feed, with the options you selected (embedded comments, related posts, social media sharing icons etc.). a. If not then please revisit the integration section of the previous step. If you still can't get it work, contact FeedBlitz support. If it's working, go back to the browser tab where you are logged in to FeedBurner.
- Click the "Troubleshootize" tab.
- Scroll down.
- Click the "Resync Now" button.
After that, viewing your FeedBurner feed should show the migration message you set up (if it doesn't, refresh the page with Shift+Ctrl+F5 to make sure you're not looking at a browser-cached version of the FeedBurner feed). If you don't see the migration message, go back to the integration section and / or contact FeedBlitz support.
If you do NOT have access to your FeedBurner dashboard:
- Make sure your bog's original feed (for WordPress it's usually mysite.com/feed) is redirecting to your FeedBlitz feed. a. If not then please revisit the integration section of the previous step. If you still can't get it work, contact FeedBlitz support.
- Wait for half an hour (FeedBurner checks your original feed for new content every 30 minutes; the migration message will make it appear as if there is all new content).
After the 30 minutes are up, viewing your FeedBurner feed should show the migration message you set up (if it doesn't, refresh the page with Ctrl+F5 to make sure you're not logging at a browser-cached version of the FeedBurner feed). If you don't see the migration message, go back to the integration section and / or contact FeedBlitz support.
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