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.