Comments on: Full Or Partial RSS Feeds – The Great Feed Debate

By: Trigunner

Trigunner — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:11:23 +0000

I’m trying to find ways to improve my feeds and it directed me here at problogger. Most of the articles that I’ve read are in favor of a full feed. This is for the reason that readers prefer to read without having to click on links. This is just my 2 cents :)

By: Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:55:37 +0000

After 18 months of offering both full and summary feeds, I find that most readers do choose the full feed. However, a significant number do go out of their way to choose the partial.

I think it’s very important to offer choice..

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:27:52 +0000

Full Article – definitely; I am always on the go and often read the RSS feeds on the train/plane

If a RSS feed is partial then I simply delete the complete feed (e.g. BBC, Motley Fool UK)

By: Carolina

Carolina — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:34:32 +0000

Sorry about the awkward sentence structure above. I’m just home from working all night and half the morning.

By: Carolina

Carolina — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:33:08 +0000

I have never figured out HOW to tell, when subscribing to a feed, whether or not it is a full or partial feed. I don’t find that out until I try reading it in my reader. I’ve also noticed that some sites begin with a full feed, and then suddenly with no warning they change it to a partial feed. Of course, if it’s one of my favourites, I click on through anyway, but if it’s a good, comment-worthy site (or article) I will click through anyway.

By: tmosley

tmosley — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:43:28 +0000

I think Rick makes an excellent point on full rss feeds vs. partial. If you rely on advertising to pay the cost associated with blogging you should run ads in the full feed. But I think some publishers want to drive traffic back to their website which is a great for keeping up their ad revenues. But on the other hand I think using services like feed burner and posting full feeds give feed burner opportunities to get more folks to sign up for their services. I suppose testing is the way to go and see what your reader prefer.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:31:33 +0000

@ Anthony Lawrence

I agree.

Even though I do prefer full feeds, providing both is the best of both worlds since people can choose which they prefer between the two and no one is imposing on readers.

By: Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:24:43 +0000

@mike

The point is that while YOU prefer full feeds, other people obviously prefer partial. A website that wants to provide good service to its readers should provide BOTH.

My stats prove it: both options grow every month – and that’s even with people having extra work to choose partial! Obviously some people don’t want full feeds – about 30% at my site.

I think it is both foolish and arrogant to impose your own likes and dislikes on your readers.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 03:47:05 +0000

Full feeds are the only way to go. I won’t waste my time following annoying links from partial feeds.

By: Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:18:17 +0000

I’ve actually been tracking this for months now.. if at all possible you should have have both full and partial (so that your readers can choose what they prefer).

While more people have chosen full since I started tracking, 30% have chosen partial – even though that’s not the default choice and they have to go out of their way to do so!

The conventional wisdom about this subject appears to be wrong.

By: WWE Crazy

WWE Crazy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:08:55 +0000

For me, full feeds is the way to go

By: Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:29:45 +0000

@youtubes

I think your comment about regulars is mostly correct. Recently I killed advertising in all new posts – ads don’t appear until the post falls out of RSS.

That’s cut my ad income about 10% – but has increased my average page views, and is a nice thing to do for the “regulars”, so I’m going to leave it that way.

By: youtubes

youtubes — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:17:57 +0000

Re: stolen content – it gets stolen anyway, the full feed just makes it easier.

Re: lost ad revenue – for me, regular visitors are very unlikely to click on ads anyway – it’s the ones who get there from search who click on ads..

By: Wf

Wf — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:11:00 +0000

I prefer partial feeds being a reader.

By: Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:18:30 +0000

@insidehoops

Because the customer is always right?

By: InsideHoops

InsideHoops — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:39:41 +0000

If you’re running a business, why would you give your full articles away for free in an rss feeder? That’s like running a store, but giving the items away.

By: Saim Baig

Saim Baig — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:15:27 +0000

I recommend full feeds

By: Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:40:15 +0000

Maybe..

As I commented above, as a result of this conversation, I implemented both full and partial feeds for my main feed and four sub feeds. In all partial feeds, I add a note that Full Text Feeds are now available with a link that takes them to the page that offers all those different feeds.

It’s only been a week so far, but partial feeds have gained subscribers while most full feeds have remained near stagnant.

I’m going to track this for a few months and see what really happens.

By: slaxh

slaxh — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:21:30 +0000

there is no debate if you had the experience of reading blog via mobile device. the answer definitely should be Full feeds.

By: michael pastor

michael pastor — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:15:09 +0000

When the argument comes down to either/or, the answer is *both* and *it depends*. Then you must look for the underlying theory or problem that exists between the dichotomy and design around *that* It’s like the argument between peer-to-peer or client/server – why do I have to make the choice?