Can I quietly redirect my RSS feed?

September 5, 2007 / Filed under: RSS

I'm like most web authors - I want to know who's reading my site. I use Mint to stay informed on basic web site stats, but one thing Mint doesn't track is RSS subscribers. For that, I need a service like Feedburner.

OK, so let's do it. I've signed up for the service, and received a shiny new URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/matthom

This is great. Anyone subscribing to that URL will be "tracked," so I can monitor stats and basic usage.

Problem is, my existing readers are already subscribed to this URL:

http://matthom.com/feed/matthom.xml

Here's what I want to avoid:

  • Having existing subscribers re-subscribe to a new feed URL.
  • Regurgitating all of my posts in subscribers' feed readers.

I don't want the subscriber to notice anything. They can stay subscribed to the old URL, and I'll still have the benefit of tracking them with the new URL.

Is this even possible?

Comments/Mentions

# Andy Atkinson at 9/6/2007 7:07 am cst

mod_rewrite to the rescue! You should be able to direct your existing URL to a new URL. I think current subscribers will pick up the new URL if the feed reader understands the permanent redirect.

I am just a beginner with this stuff, here is official docs. http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_rewrite.html

You want an ".htaccss" file in your public root directory. You should be able to add the following rule:

Redirect permanent /feed/matthom.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/matthom

The good thing about using Feedburner is now if you ever change your address again, you update it with feedburner and the URL never changes!

Check your stats and make sure there aren't people 404-ing. If you mess up the .htaccess file, it will kill your webserver too, so be prepared to FTP in a restore a working copy.