RSS Down or Something?
March 28th, 2012
Well, one of my fears is realized. It’s computer buggaphobia.
Apparently something has gone wrong with the comic’s RSS feed and at the least I have alienated nearly 1.2K readers from regular Moes. The feed file itself has been showing new entries, and no site code has been changed, so I’m already confused! But I can confirm that Google Reader hasn’t shown any strips since last week. Are people getting the feed properly through other channels?
Now it’s time to work on a solution. I hope that sitting around and doing nothing works.
Update: Initial reports suggest that this issue is probably specific to Google Reader.
March 28th, 2012 at 9:02 am
I’m reading the feed trough tinytinyrss and that works fine 😀
March 28th, 2012 at 9:05 am
I’m using a Chrome extension for RSS feeds, and Moe’s been showing up just fine for me!
March 28th, 2012 at 9:07 am
Thanks so much for the info! It’s a relief that the issue is only with Google Reader apparently. Hopefully helps with diagnosing the problem.
March 28th, 2012 at 9:31 am
I’m using FireFox’s RSS Ticker plugin, and every update turns up safe and sound!
March 28th, 2012 at 10:15 am
I use my.yahoo and I get all the updates listed, but when I click on the link, I get redirected to some website advertising a few drugs.
This also happens when I search on google…
the only way I got here was cutting and pasting the web address directly instead of using a link.
talk about hard work :O
March 28th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
been workin fine on bloglines
March 28th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I’m getting the feed through Rockmelt, works perfectly fine. ‘Sept sometimes I get updated a while after something is posted. I assume that’s normal…
March 28th, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Haven’t had any problems using Thunderbird.
March 28th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
I feel like all the people who have it working, are going to see this and answer, but most people who don’t have it working won’t be able to
March 29th, 2012 at 7:35 am
Sorry, Admiral. I get my Moe fix straight from the firmanproductions.com tap. I consider it ‘reporting for duty’. RSS is for those without dedication!
March 29th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
When I use google to search for “Moe Comics”, I get sent to a website selling viagra. The website is called Firman Productions as wel it seems.
March 29th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Interestingly, the first hit in Steve’s search is indeed for viagra, but the second hit is firmanproductions.com/index.php, but if you click that link, it also sends you to the same Viagra site. If you type it in your browser, though, you get sent to the correct site.
The Bing and Yahoo search engines aren’t smart enough to connect ‘Moe Comics’ with your site, but searching Firman Productions and clicking the top hit also redirects to Viagra ads.
March 30th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Google Reader user here. My rss links actually take me to the viagra selling page. so yeah it might be Google readers fault.
March 30th, 2012 at 11:10 am
Oh i forgot to add disabling java-script will fix the weird redirect that Steve and Carp are getting.
March 31st, 2012 at 2:55 am
If I had money I’d hire a webmaster, because my tech unsavvyness is starting to hurt the audience. I don’t understand what’s happening but I’m sorry! I updated WordPress, but I don’t know if that will do much. Not sure how they’ve been able to hijack google results and my site like that. The novice bloggers are at the mercy of shithead hacks.
April 1st, 2012 at 1:40 am
You might have been “Google Bombed” if the search results have gone out. Since this is a relatively obscure little comic, there isn’t too much traffic, and therefore not too high a PageRank rating in the Google engine. Your own short Google of the phrase will guide you to some helpful information. There are internet mercenaries that can be hired by others like doubleclick.net <don't touch that link or you'll get a virus! Your options for fixing are limited, but with enough of your followers working together you could use a bigger Google bomb to perhaps resolve the issue.
I'm putting a relevant link in as my website. Hopefully it starts you in the right direction. If you have any tech-savvy friends on hand, ask them what they know about Google bombs.
April 4th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
oh i just got three updates at once. Presumably it works now.
April 9th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
I had a crazy problem with my feed in Google Reader for a while. My feed would have the last ten updates, but somehow Reader was showing updates from 6 months prior. My feed completely validated, didn’t even have the old entries in it, so I guessed Google was caching old stuff and somehow was showing them.
Never figured it out. Had to just move to a new feed.