Popular Entries - How They Work

The FeedCluster.com service periodically selects aggregator entries that are "popular" and shows them on the FeedCluster.com home page.

Frequency

How frequently new entries appear varies. As of this writing a new entry may appear as often as every 30 minutes.

Factors Determining Popularity

An entry is considered popular primarily based on (valid) clicks it receives in FeedCluster.com aggregators or aggregator widgets.

FeedCluster.com selects entries that are popular in relation to other entries in the same aggregator.

Overall aggregator popularity does matter, but not in a way that is linear. If aggregator A is 10 times as popular as aggregator B, entries from A have greater odds of showing on the home page, but not 10 times greater odds. It could be 2 times greater odds. The exact calculation depends on our internal algorithms, which will continue to be adjusted in the future.

For entries to be considered, there are also minimum requirements in terms of aggregator access frequency.

Click Validity

The following types of clicks are not considered valid in terms of estimating an entry's popularity, and they are not counted if detected.

• Repeat clicks by the same visitor.
• Clicks made through open proxies.
• Clicks made programmatically by spiders, scripts, bots or other automated means.

Some Tips

As previously mentioned, overall aggregator popularity matters. Successful aggregators at FeedCluster.com are typically those belonging to an established blogging community. They are announced and discussed in blogs.

Entry clicks made through widgets – like the ones shown to your right and below – are also counted when entry popularity is estimated. Bloggers who are members of aggregators should be encouraged to show aggregator widgets or membership buttons on their blogs, or to otherwise link to the aggregator. This improves the odds that their own blog entries will make it to the FeedCluster.com home page.

Aggregator widgets can normally be obtained by clicking on a link named "Embed in my website" in the information box of an aggregator's main page. What this link usually looks like is shown below.