While Drupal has fully integrated RSS, I prefer using FeedBurner.

• FeedBurner automatically translates my feeds into a format that the reading application can understand. With no extra work, I get support for Atom and all of the variations of RSS.
• It serves my feeds for me, checking in occasionally for updates. This moves traffic off my server, reducing my bandwidth costs.
• It gives me an rough idea of how many readers I have, boosting my ego.
• It provides a nicely formatted, easy to read view of my feeds. Not everyone understands RSS, and no one wants a screenful of XML.
• It gives would-be subscribers a one-click signup for most popular reader applications.
• It can add links to Digg, StumbleUpon, and other social bookmarking sites to each article.
• With enough traffic, FeedBurner can serve targeted ads in the feeds.

The biggest drawback to using FeedBurner with Drupal is that it isn't really set up to deal with the sheer quantity of feeds generated by an out-of-the-box Drupal site. Drupal creates feeds for just about every type of list it displays including categories, views, and forum containers. FeedBurner has more of a one-feed-per-site mentality. Hooking up FeedBurner to every Drupal feed, while possible, would be a fair bit of work for your typical free-tagging blogger site.

To address this issue, I modified my sites to publish a single feed over the entire site. You can see how I did it, and maybe get some ideas on how to leverage RSS for your own site, in my article One Feed to Rule Them All.

Burn Your Site

Whether you have consolidated your feeds or not, adding FeedBurner support to Drupal is simple. Just grab the Drupal FeedBurner module and install it. Sign up for a FeedBurner account, and then redirect any or all of your existing Drupal feeds to their FeedBurner equivalent using the FeedBurner module settings page. Your current readers will be transparently redirected to the new FeedBurner address behind the scenes.

While the setup is not complicated, there are a few non-obvious steps you can take to make your FeedBurner setup more effective and future-proof.

Create a Feed Alias (optional)

Drupal's default front page feed is located at http://mysite.com/rss.xml. I like to alias this to http://mysite.com/feed instead. This is mostly personal preference, but I feel like it offers a little bit of insurance in case I want to change how the RSS is served up in the future or (perish the thought!) switch to a different CMS.

To create an alias, enable the Path module, then select Administer > Site building > URL aliases. Select "Add alias", enter "rss.xml" for the "Existing system path" and "feed" (or whatever) for the replacement. Done.

Burn the Feed

Sign in to FeedBurner and create a new Burn by entering your feed URL right there on the "My Feeds" page. This can be the default front page feed (http://mysite.com/rss.xml), your own custom alias, or any other Drupal feed such as the category listings or forum containers. Right out of the box, you will now have access to FeedBurner's reader tracking. But wait, there's more!

There are a ton of options to play with, but here are a few you should definitely turn on:

Own Your URL

One of the reasons people shy away from FeedBurner is because they don't want to get "locked in". That is, they don't want a whole bunch readers subscribed to a feedburner.com URL, preventing them from switching to coolnewburner.com later on. You can prevent this "lock in" by setting your own feed URL.

Navigate to your feed's settings on FeedBurner (go to "My Feeds" and click on the feed name). Click on the "Optimize" tab, and "BrowserFriendly". At the bottom of the page, find "Are you redirecting your feed traffic?" and click the link beneath it. Enter your Drupal feed URL here (http://mysite.com/rss.xml or whatever it may be) and Save. New subscribers will now pick up your Drupal URL, instead of the FeedBurner address.

Freedom!

SmartFeed

While we're on the Optimize tab, click on "SmartFeed" and Activate. This will enable FeedBurner's translation service, which automatically translates Drupal's RSS 2.0 feed into whatever format is appropriate for the requesting reader application. So if someone tries to view your feed with an Atom-only reader, it will still work.

FeedFlare

FeedFlare embeds links to Digg, del.icio.us, and other social bookmarking sites into your feed. This can provide a nice bit of publicity and a boost in traffic.

That's It!

You have now moved your feed to FeedBurner! Feel free to leave questions and suggestions in the comments and I will try to respond. I may update this article from time to time as I learn more, or to reflect changes in Drupal or FeedBurner.