How's your feed? Are you serving up full or partial feeds to your readers?
by The great thing about blogs is that readers can subscribe to your feed. Each time you publish a new post, readers are notified in one of a number of possible ways that you have a new post.
If you read a lot of blogs you probably use a tool especially meant to pull in and organize blog feeds. This software is commonly called an RSS reader. There are many, but the one I use is called Net News Wire.
Bloggers serve up their RSS feeds in two ways: full or partial.
Here's an example of a partial feed, as seen in my Net News Wire application. It shows a post from In Women We Trust. You see an initial paragraph, but to read the entire post, you need to click through to the blog itself.
Next, an example showing a full feed, from the blog Female Science Professor. You can't see the full post in the window, but you would only have to scroll down while still in the RSS reader to see it all. No clicking through to the blog.
Here's a full feed example from Time Goes By. See the big white space after the second paragraph? That doesn't indicate a partial feed. There's a YouTube video there. It doesn't show up in the reader. Whenever a post includes a video, I must click through to see it. (This may only true for Net News Wire.)
Since video implies sound, I really prefer not to have the video there in the reader, blaring away when I might want quiet. Clicking through to see and hear a video is non-offensive, in my opinion.
There are two points of view regarding the full vs. partial feed decision. Some bloggers fear that a partial feed may lose readers for the blog. Many readers find the need for that extra click to get to the blog annoying. Some even refuse to read blogs that use partial feeds. Other readers don't find it a problem and quickly click to visit the blog and see the full story. I'm in the second group; the click-through doesn't annoy me. But people in the opposite camp hold strong feelings about that extra click.
From a blogger's point of view, partial feeds serve a purpose. They bring traffic to the site. There are several reasons why bloggers may want to bring traffic to the blog site instead of sending full posts out in a feed. One is advertising dollars (although you can put ads in RSS feeds). More traffic equals more ad income. Another is because of material on the blog that does not get pulled into a reader with an RSS feed. I don't mean only video. None of the great information in a sidebar shows up in a feed. The hard work and talent showcase inherent in creating a beautiful blog design doesn't show up in a feed. The comment form doesn't show up in a feed.
Back at the beginning of this year, when Denise was handing out assignments for the Be a Better Blogger series on BlogHer, she ask me to do this post. I decided to switch to partial feeds for Web Teacher. I've used full feeds for years. I wanted to see for myself whether partial feeds would really bring in more traffic. Here's a view of my blog stats since that time.
Ignore that big spike, one of my stories got Stumbled. Also ignore the big drop at the end: it's only part of a week. To understand the difference partial feeds made, look at the slow but steady upward movement in numbers from week to week. My conclusion is that partial feeds are helping my traffic. I can't tell from this how many readers unsubscribed to my feed in their feed reader when I changed to partial feeds, if any. I can say that partial feeds bring more readers to my blog. Not many, but I don't have teeming hoards of readers. Small increments matter to me.
I've decided partial feeds work for me. You might make a different decision. If you're one of the group who find partial feeds an annoyance, you may not want to use them yourself. Perhaps bring traffic directly to your blog doesn't matter to you. Let people read the whole post in an RSS feed.
I don't think there's a universal right answer for you about which way to go. My goal was increased traffic to the blog. I tried it both ways before I decided on partial feeds. Perhaps that's my universal answer: decide on your goal for your RSS feeds, and test it for yourself to see what works.
--
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words
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Comments
I think this would be helpful with subscriber
counts
I'm curious why you don't know if it affected your subscriber count. Do you use something like feedburner or something to determine that?
Although, I suppose if traffic to the site (for ad revenue or whatever) was the most important goal, then it doesn't matter how the subscriber number changed or didn't change. :-)
Miss Britt
http://www.miss-britt.com
"Dignity is Overrated"
Feedburner
My subscriber count at Feedburner has remained the same, but I don't know how many people are subscribing directly to the RSS feed without going through Feedburner. If you can tell me a way to track that, I'd love to know about it.
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words
Do you redirect all your feeds to fedburner?
If you redirect all your feeds to feedburner (or "burn the feed"), then the number you get on feedburner should be pretty accurate. I think. :-)
Miss Britt
http://www.miss-britt.com
"Dignity is Overrated"
Most of us will return to full feeds ...
... once the advertising networks provide a way to monetize our feeds. It's a real shortcoming, forcing readers onto our sites, simply because the online advertising world hasn't figure out how to deliver/measure ads in RSS feeds and RSS e-mail subscriptions. It will happen -- I personally would LOVE for the BlogHer Ad Network to become the leader in this!
Virginia, you can redirect all your existing RSS/atom/etc feeds to a single FeedBurner feed, that will provide the 'single count' you say you want. THAT said, FeedBurner has gone wonky with support, features, etc since being acquired by Google. I suppose some of this will sort out once the two are integrated but in the mean time, it's not pretty.
Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture
In a perfect world
we could monetize our feeds, as Alana suggests. Then the full versus partial debate would be moot. To Miss Britt, I decided against making Feedburner the only way to get my feed. They do too much changing to suit me and I think it's a burden to always ask your readers to resub because of some goings on at Feedburner.
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words
Hmm.
The very point of FeedBurner is that if you point all your existing feeds to one place, then anyone who subscribes to those feeds NEVER knows when there's a change because they needn't re-subscribe.
A friend just moved her blog from blogger to Wordpress. Because she didn't redirect her feed, she lost all the readers who had subscribed via RSS readers and e-mail subscriptions. The really bad news? This was done without her realizing and her "web developer" didn't anticipate the problem. She paid MONEY for this "professional".
Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture
Might depend on your audience
Great article on this full vs. partial debate.
A few Wordpress upgrades ago, it switched all the feeds to partial (this was resolved in a subsequent upgrade). During that time, at the Queercents.com blog we got complaints from some of our top subscribers (very valuable people who often linked to us) that if we stayed Partial they would unsubscribe.
As a blog reader I hate having to click through to read a full post, unless there is audio or video, that doesn't offend me.
i'm curious what Feedburner problems have you had? I wasn't aware of people having to re-subscribe. Please share more...
Thanks for great series!
Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company
http://www.thepaulagcompany.com
There was a time
a couple of years ago (or thereabouts) when everyone had to resubscribe to Feedburner feeds. I wasn't getting a lot of good information from Feedburner to motivate me to rely solely on them. Maybe I need a Feedburner tutorial. Want to give one in the BlogHer Conference geek track this year? I'll come!
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words
I unsubscribe to partial feeds
I glance through and read blogs. If I have to click-through, I consider that the blogger doesn't care much for the needs of his or her reader. Different people have a different opinion, but pull technology is again the future - anyone else remember PointCast?
MLO / Melissa
I rarely subscribe to partial feeds
And if I'm not subscribed to a blog I'm not reading (not with anything akin to regularity anyway). Sure, it doesn't take long to click over to read one partial feed but times that by 20 or 30 or 50 and yeah, no. Not happening. I just don't have time.
Notice I did say "rarely". There are blogs that are really well written and who have partial feeds that I will read. Why? Because their content is fantastic and it is more than worth it.
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
Full feeds here please
I can see your reasons for partial feeds, but I'm a strong believer
in having full feeds anyway, or at least offer a choice between the two. The people who
don't like partial feeds will leave. I'm one of 'em. If I read a full
feed and I want to look at the website or make a comment I'll click
over. I don't want to have the choice taken from me not to read the
full feed in the feed reader.
On another note, I use Google Reader and I can see most images and youtube clips within the feed.
As you said, it's something people feel strongly about one way or the other.
Jen at Semantically driven and Safari suit
The trend
among commenters here is definitely anti partial feeds. That's why I think it's important to watch your stats if you want to try partial feeds, so you see what happens to your particular blog.
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words
hmm
washy || http://washwords.com/words || washwords.dc@gmail.com
I think I might be confused or at least, I think there is a "best of both worlds" solution... for me as a reader anyway. Using the "greasemonkey" (firefox) add-on i just clickity click on "preview" and the ACTUAL blog pops up right in my feedreader; i even comment right from there
I use google reader and subscribe to hundreds / thousands of blogs. I like to scroll through these quickly using the "list view" and then click through on ones that interest me. Maybe i'm not the typical reader but to me I'd rather see everything and rapidfire click through and respond more detailedly to things that interest me.
I will confess not really getting the best way to set up rss feed. I thought I transferred my feed to feedburner but it's saying 0 subscribers and i know people are clicking trhough from feed readers (google reader / etc.) so...
anyway, just more tjhoughts/confusion/etc. :)
I vote for partial feeds!
In the quest for increased traffic, I appreciate the teaser aspect of inviting readership that a partial feed allows. I am dedicated to conversations and topics that help us organize our thinking, our feelings and our effectiveness.
Avery Otto
Http://www.transitionchoices.com
Wordpress/traffic/stats
Kerry Anne Ducey
I use Wordpress and google analytics. I can interpret so much from these stats..where are the hits/when/how long do folks stay on and where are they coming from. I like being able to see where my link is making giving me the most bang for my buck.
I realize this is a bit off topic, but I'm having trouble getting picked up by search engines. Suggestions?
Kerry
www.yourstartupstory.com
Some good search engine resources
http://www.blogher.com/basic-search-engine-optimization-seo-tactics
http://www.blogher.com/node/25222
http://www.blogher.com/findability-your-blog-findable-possible
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words
@vdebolt
search engines
Kerry Anne Ducey
Thanks!