Full or partial RSS feeds?
February 28, 2010 in Growth, Latest Posts by Kimmy 15 Comments » 1,176 views
One of the discussions in the blog world that will probably continue to be debated until the end of time is that of full RSS feeds vs partial feeds.
There are numerous arguments on either side that are persuasive for me. On one hand, partial RSS feeds require readers to click over to your site therefore ensuring engagement and pageviews on your blog. Or does it? The opposing argument says that a lot of people will simply unsubscribe rather than dealing with partial posts.
Which is better for your blog?
I waver between the two options, often switching between the two unsure which is better. In fact today I switched back to having full posts in my feed as I was pondering this issue. I am torn between wanting to make sure I establish a dialog with my readers and in my mind, the key to that is getting them to visit my site. But the question is, does a partial RSS feed mean I am more likely to get them over and comment, or less?
A full RSS feed gives a reader immediate access. They can read the article and see the photos right away without clicking. Would that make them more engaged with the article, and therefore more likely to comment than a teaser paragraph? In Google Reader, the RSS feed reader I use, there are 2 views, a list view and an expanded view. I look at the list view first to get a quick overview of what I have missed. In this list, it shows the post title and a bit of the first paragraph.
From a reader’s perspective, does a full post interrupt the flow of their RSS reader when they do open the expanded view, frustrating them that they have to scroll past it to see the other new posts that they are subscribed to? Or do they use the list view for that purpose and expect and want the expanded view to show the full posts?
I have heard of people unsubscribing from a blog because of partial feeds. So which is better, having more subscribers and readers or having more click-throughs to your blog? But who says showing full feeds means less click-throughs, anyway? It might actually simply mean that fewer people read your full posts.
I am not much of an RSS reader user (you can tell by the 1000+ new items in the screen shot above). I prefer email subscriptions and generally choose that first. I do have all my favorite blogs in my RSS reader, and I open it every once in a while, but I prefer to visit my favorite sites directly. I like to see if they have a new design or layout. I like what I am reading to have the personality of their site surrounding it. But many people are all about their feed readers, rarely visiting a blog except maybe on rare occasion to leave a comment. I’m sure there are as many different types of ways people use their feed readers as there are blogs to read!
How do we make everyone happy?
Too bad there isn’t a way to allow the subscriber to choose full or partial feeds…
So I was wondering, do you use full or partial feeds for your blog, but also, which do you prefer to READ?
Loading ... Loading ...In addition to taking the poll, I’d love to know WHY you answered the way you did. In my own search to determine the best answer to this question, I’m interested in your perspective, and I’m sure a bunch of others are as well.
I prefer email subscriptions because I love to visit my friends blogs to see what is new on them (just like Kim said). Sometimes they have new layouts or new photos of their kids, or sometimes there are links or ads that can help me on my own blog. It is a terrific social network and I want to know what is going on all over. If you don’t visit the blogs, you can miss out on lots of stuff.
I used to get do the email subscription thing – then one day it all stopped, for no reason and I wasn’t the only one. Then I migrated to google reader. However, I changed to rss because with google reader once a post has been “read” or clicked on – I can’t click “unread” if I want to go back to it. With rss I like the full feed because I can read the whole thing right there AND when I’m done I will click over and comment. If I don’t have time and just want to read a few I can. I do get very frustrated with the blogs that have partial feeds because I don’t want to click on every post to read it. I have thought about not subscribing to those because of it.
I’ve weighed in on this debate before and it fascinates me because there really is no right or wrong answer. It all comes down to the goals of the blogger.
If your goal is traffic – then by all means publish a partial feed and hope you get those click throughs.
Personally, my goal is readership. I want to be read and I don’t care if they read in their email, feed reader or on my blog. So I put out a full feed and I think that I always will.
I answered full feed because that’s what I prefer to read myself. I just get frustrated when I see teaser paragraphs with no pictures at all, and, if I’m in a hurry, it’s a lot easier to delete the partial RSS feed because I don’t have a clue what I might be missing.
Also, for me, I’m not more likely to comment on a post because I went to their blog to read the post. It is the content of the post that pushes me to comment or not.
This was a great post, by the way!
Originally I had a full feed. Then I found a website was scraping not only my feed but built a hub type Website of entirely scraped feeds. Apparently I was their green DIY blogger without knowing it or credit because they stripped all links to my blog from the posts they stole.
I switched to a partial feed as a quick fix while I was sorting out the mess. Good thing, I found a couple of other scraped posts on other sites that way.
I hated to do it, but I notified my readers via my blog and Twitter why I was switching from full to partial feeds. They were very supportive when they found out why I made the switch.
I publish a full feed because that’s how I prefer to read other blogs. I rarely if ever use my reader, I prefer to subscribe to the blogs I’m interested in and I prefer that they have a full feed. I just don’t have time to click over to 100+ blogs to finish reading their partial feeds and I usually just delete those or pass over them unless it’s something that REALLY catches my interest. I did try publishing a partial feed for a short time but I just didn’t care for it
As a second thought – I didn’t spend a ton of time, effort and money to design and continually update my website only to be published in a full feed and read through an RSS reader.
Hence, my reason for liking partial feeds.
I said partial on both. My reason is simple. I want to only see a partial amount of the post when I’m reading through my email because it takes up less space. If you can’t get my attention on the post within the first 300 words or so the rest of the post isn’t going to get my attention any better. So, if you get my attention within those first 300 words, I’ll click and read the rest, otherwise I want to scroll to the next post and I don’t want to have to scroll through 2-3 page lengths of post to do so. I’m the same way with a message board, if you don’t have my attention with the title of your post, I won’t read it. If I don’t know what your post is based off the title you give it, I won’t look at it, no matter how important that post may be.
For my RSS, I have chosen the partial for a couple reasons. First, it gives my readers a chance to see what the post is about and determine if they want to read more (basically the reason I like seeing partials on blogs I subscribe to). Second, most of my larger posts are reviews and giveaways, so I know that if the person wants the prize they will click over whether my RSS be partial or full AND my personal posts are normally short so you basically see the entire post in the partial. Third, because in order to get on the blogroll thing for MomDot, you had to have yours set to partial and if that was the way to get MomDot people to view my site, then I was all for it.
Would I change to a full version? If I had enough people unsubscribe for that reason, then probably. But only if I knew that it would keep them coming to my site. If they don’t come to the site anyway because they just want to read from RSS then NO, I wouldn’t change it because to me they aren’t loyal readers unless they physically come to the site.
I subscribe to blogs through RSS Google reader, but only because it gives me a way (besides bookmarking) which blogs I would like to return to and visit.
If I find a blog that I really would like to read their current material on a regular basis, I subscribe through email.
My reason for email subscription is that I check my email constantly. I don’t check my reader constantly. I have read on several prominent sites that people (even non-techie bloggers) are more familiar with using email rather than the complications of readers. Therefore, if subscribed through email, many are more apt to visit someone’s blogs. Many people correspond via email with their kids who live on opposite coasts or around the world and are comfortable with email. Not everyone grew up with computers or is familiar with Skype, etc.
I realize I’m now a bit off-track, but my point is – people are fairly comfortable with opening email every day, and not visiting a reader every day. Yes, for time management purposes a reader is good.
I publish partial feeds.
If someone really likes my blog and wants to read me, they know where to find me, either way.
I actually feel very strongly about this so I am weighing in. I used to subscribe in email to blogs, but then my inbox got overwhelming so I switched to Google Reader. And after about a month of reading that way unsubscribed to all my partial feed blogs. Even a few of my absolute favorites. It killed me but I honestly clicked over maybe once a month and they were just cluttering up my feed. So know if I go to add a feed to my reader and it is partial feed I won’t even bother subscribing.
I have 3 kids, am active on Twitter, blog and read a lot of blogs. I simply am not going to take the effort to click over to a blog on partial feed. Whenever this question has been posted on Twitter, in my twitter community the answer is overwhelmingly in agreement with me. Most people won’t read a partial feed blog. I am interested to see what your poll nets out.
I tend to do the partial thing ’cause of all the feed scrapers out there.
I like to read full RSS feeds and sometimes I just skip by the partial feeds when I’m short on time, which seems to be all the time.
Having said that I publish partial feeds. Now I am thinking about switching.
Unfortunately we’re all busy and have other things to do so we can’t possibly hit every blog we want to. Some people just don’t have time to click over from a partial feed. If they did it’s the same time it would take them to surf to the site, which they don’t always have.
The blogs I must read and never want to miss I subscribe in email. If there is something in there that makes me want to say something I click over.
I publish in full feeds.
I figure any way someone wants to read what I have to say is fine with me.
I’m grateful if they read in email rather than not at all.
I personally don’t use google reader so I guess I don’t fully understand it.
My feed is right now publishing as full but I’ve thought of changing it over to partial. I’ve often wondered what the point is of having a bunch of subscribers if they never click over to your blog. (Especially if you have cpm ads.) Idk, it’s a hard choice.
I have always used partial RSS feed on my site! Now you got me thinking LOL but also am very use to reading partial, because only 1 or 2 have full feed that I’m subscribed to!