Going Full Feed Ahead …
August 20, 2008 by Trish Jones
Filed under Blogging and Social Marketing, Website Promotion Strategies
Why I’ve Changed My Stance On Publishing Full Feeds
I received a very nice email from one of my subscribers this evening asking why I had decided to publish only the links to my post rather than the entire article.
My response was simple really … “I was experimenting” since I wasn’t sure which format gave the biggest benefit.
In truth, I had noticed that whilst I received way more trackbacks from suspicious sources when publishing full feeds, my RSS subscriptions increased.
For those of you who read my blog via RSS reader, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m going forward “Full Feed Ahead” from now on.
So, what changed my decision?
Two blog posts really, one from Marie Langer at http://www.marialanger.com/2007/01/31/full-text-vs-summary-feeds and of course, it wouldn’t be right to make such an important decision before going and checking the site of the “Mighty Blogger,” Darren Rowse. I had already made up my mind prior to reading this blog post, but this was the clincher.
I’m satisfied that whilst there are some negatives to publishing full feeds, the benefits far outweigh them. Since I don’t sell ads on my site at the moment, it’s not such a big deal to me to get people to the site but besides this, I’m of the opinion that when subscribers are ready, they will come!
If you’re a blogger and you’re either sitting on the fence about publishing full feeds or, you’re adamant that your subscriber just has to be satisfied with the Feed format you decide to serve up, it really would be worth your while checking out the above posts.
Best,
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First, thanks for the link. That piece is a bit old, but it still applies. I’ve switched to full feeds and have stayed with them. I think I’m getting a lot more subscribers. I can understand why. I wouldn’t subscribe to a summary feed; how can I expect my readers to do so?
You’ve probably already discovered that your RSS feeds can be scrapped by sploggers. I use Akismet to require moderation for all comments and all those pingbacks get filtered out. The content still gets out there, though, but hopefully, the link back to your site helps you get new readers or do better with Google page rank.
Anyway, I also wanted to mention that I liked the title to this post, “Going Full Feed Ahead.” Very witty.
Best of luck with your blog and feeds.
I like very much the writings and pictures and explanations in your adress so I look forward to see your next writings. I congratulate you.
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Maria,
I wished I’d done some more delving before - I would probably have many more subscribers today. It was so clear from blog comments on Darren Rowse’s blog for example that people perferred full feeds and I suppose this is a case of giving the reader what the reader wants.
Re the scraping by sploggers, I do have moderation enabled on my comments so I’ve decided not to make this a concern.
Thanks for your comment Maria - appreciated.
Trish