Are Some Podcasters Gaming the Apple Subscription Metrics System?



I found some links today through a round about way that indicates that some podcasters may and I repeat may have found a way to game the Podcast Subscription Metric System Apple has.

It is assumed that Apple ranks their Top Podcast list by the number of new people subscribing to a particular show over a period of time.

While I don’t want to point a finger as I could be wrong here, I have reason to believe some shows have found the redirect link that Apple uses internally when someone subscribes to a show from a website link.

If a podcaster knew what that link was, and which I think some have. They could conceivably ping that link on a regular basis. While I do not have conclusive proof of this, and some of it may be speculation. I hope the folks at Apple are making sure that people are not able to inject remotely a false subscription.

If a Apple rep wants to contact me, I can provide the hyperlink data I have found and they can decide themselves if they have a issue or not.

Meanwhile I am going to be looking at the category listings on Apple iTunes and see if any of this correlates to the sites and shows I have found this link on.

About Todd Cochrane

Todd Cochrane is the Founder of Geek News Central and host of the Geek News Central Podcast. He is a Podcast Hall of Fame Inductee and was one of the very first podcasters in 2004. He wrote the first book on podcasting, and did many of the early Podcast Advertising deals in the podcasting space. He does two other podcasts in addition to Geek News Central. The New Media Show and Podcast Legends.


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