I’ve just started a new weekly poll over in the sidebar.
This week we’re going to full up the Great Feed Debate that we ran on the blog this week and are asking:
Do You Use Full or Partial Feeds on Your Blogs? (or do you offer your readers a choice of both)
If you have more blogs than one – answer with what you do on the majority of your blogs.
PS: I’ll post the results of the last Poll shortly.
{democracy:19}
Thought of doing the same poll in my blog.
To tell you the truth, I hate partial feed in my RSS feed. This requires additional work of double clicking to see the “whole” story.
Partial feeds are just annoying, if someone wants a partial feed they can switch to the title only view of their feed reader, which usually has a partial feed anyway…
I’m using full feeds and I wish everybody else starts using full feeds.
I used to have partial feeds, but since I usually put photos in my posts, the full feed which includes the photos is more attractive.
Full feeds, it’s meaningless to offer partial feeds for loyal readers.
I only offer partial feeds
Most people here will say they only read full feeds, partial feeds are annoying blah blah etc …
However speaking from the perspective of someone who is making serious money out of blogging, I think my moving to full feeds would be:
1. Financially stupid – My advertisers to date have used pageviews, site visits and click through percentages as a metric, no one to date has cared about the number of RSS readers although I do value them
2. RSS feeds do not monetise easily whether full feed or partial
3. Full feeds = Green light to content scrapers
For people at other ends of the spectrum it may well make sense
1. Earning peanuts from blogging – its no loss to offer full feeds
or
2. Ultra Successful with a huge fanclub and not relying on search queries for traffic like Darren – than full feeds are worth trying
Back to lurking now … keep up the good work Darren
Full feeds. I find partial feeds to be really annoying, since the only serve to slow me down. Especially when I’ve got hundreds of feeds to go through in Google Reader…
Full feeds only. It always bugs me when I get partial feeds in the reader, so I give my readers the whole thing. I find the I click through to interesting topics anyway so that I can make or read comments.
i use a partial feed though due to the nature of my blog… as my blog is bout jokes, i’ll like to leave them a cliffhanger… however, i must admit that my blog is still new so im not sure is it a good idea after all… what you guys feel???
Full Feeds Only.
I rarely keep a partial feed longer than a week before I dump it out of frustration.
On my personal blogs I use full feeds, but I am thinking of switching to partial feeds.
Full feeds because I’m sure my readers would appreciate it if I helped them save some time and a few mouse clicks to read the entire article. After all, if they aren’t interested in the post, they could easily skip reading it.
I have personally unsubscribed from a few blogs because the blogger offered only partial feeds. Jumps are OK if the post is unusually long, but cutting short feeds just to entice readers to click through might backfire, IMHO.
It’s full feeds for me. They may not visit my blog, but at least they read what I wrote.
Why are there 10 comments above mine but I was actually the first one to vote in the poll. Come on people its a poll. I’m sure Darin would appreciate the participation.
Anyway I use full feeds on my blog
Full feeds.
If what I write is good enough people will come by my site anyhow so I’m not to worried about it.
Something’s wrong with the poll. I’ve given my vote and was astonished to see that I was the only one who voted. That can’t be true.
I heard that is best to have full text on your feed, not sure why but I like it. What I don’t like is having you creating a poll on your main post and no body participating on it, I was surprised to be the first vote when there are 12 comments already. I encourage the community to pay attention to these small details. Great post, thanks.
“no body” you know I meant nobody, sorry.
Once again, my mistake. For some reason my results didn’t show the full participation at first, it must be a bug in the plugin. Sorry, feel free to edit or erase my previous comments.
I use only full feeds.
Full feeds give several advantages over partial. Services like Serph will index a feed, and the more in it the better!
I read most of my feeds using the Mobile Google Reader, thus I can read the entire post at once, without having to link back to a Web site that most likely is not designed to be viewed properly on my Treo.
For those with visual impairments, they also have the advantage of reading it in a feed reader that works for them without the added noise of a Web site.
I offer full feeds for my site. The main reason for this is because I’ve unsubscribed to all but one of my partial feed RSS feeds due to the fact that with 65+ blogs in my reader, I flat out don’t have time to click through a partial feed most of the time. And frankly, they annoy me. I’m guessing that most others feel the same way. So I offer full feeds.
Also, I want to guarantee that my feed count stays high. I like to tell people that I have a relatively high subscriber rate when I can. And keeping the feed at a full-feed status, I feel it will be easier for me to retain readers.
I am a big full feed supporter. I provide it where ever it is possible.
I always prefer a full feed, and I unsubscribe to partial ones. If I wanted to go to the site, I wouldn’t be reading it in an RSS reader.
I click through for some blogs like this one & copyblogger, in order to digg or delicious posts. post comments, etc.
There are so many comments posted but why I am the only one who vote? Is there something wrong with the poll stats?
Full feeds only – it doesn’t make sense to me to force my feed subscribers to visit the site to pick up the rest of the story.
If I like to read full feeds in GReader, why wouldnt I do the same for my readers? Full feed only on my site.
I think partial feeds can work for some sites, but only if you provide enough of a sample. I can recall 3 partial feeds I’m currently subscribed to…
-the Joy of Tech comic, which gives a sample picture in their partial feed to pique my interest (unlike most comic feeds where all it says is “New Comic”)
– the TV Squad feed, which provides 2-3 paragraphs in their partial feed…usually enough content to want to make me read further or not at all. I havent found a comparable high-quality alternative, so I stick with it.
– the Braingle Daily Brain Teaser, which gives the “riddle” in the feed, and redirects to the site for the answer, possibly the best partial feed implementation I’ve seen.
All told, if you provide me enough of a preview (more than just a sentence or two as most blogs default to), I’m inclined to stick with a partial feed (if and ONLY if there is no acceptable alternative…ie, you must be providing unique high-quality content).
–Ravi
PS. Darren, what plugin are you using for your poll? Doesn’t look like Democracy…
Full feeds forever.
I refuse to read any sites with partial feeds, why would I inflict that on my readers?
I agree that partial feeds are annoying in a reader. I have maintained subscriptions to only 2 blogs that regularly offer only partial feeds because I had been reading them for so long before I learned how to subscribe in a reader and they almost feel like family. A couple of others do use the jump option for really long posts and I don’t have a problem with that because they don’t write a ton of long posts every day of the year (sorry about the double negative).
I only offer a full feed, but I’d like to offer both — I just haven’t figured out how to do it with blogger. Hopefully I will.
Gotta go full feed unless you have a specific reason not to.
I would much rather explore feed-specific monetization techniques than try to lure readers from the RSS to the site. I think it goes against the nature of RSS, personally.
Hands down full feeds.
I have a total of many 30 rss feeds on my reader, out of those the only two that publish only partial feeds are A List Apart and Zeldman.com (both Jeffry Zeldman’s sites). I keep visiting them less and less now that i have to click on the link on the reader to load the sites on Firefox, it’s just so much easier to read them on feedreader.
I use partial feeds. Most of the times my articles are very long, so I think that is the best way to do it..
I’ll click-thru on a partial feed when the topic is compelling enough, but it is a bit aggravating to have to do so. I understand that bloggers & web dev people want their sites to be seen, but I’ll usually visit to post a comment anyway, so why not gimme the full feed?
When blogs offer only partial feeds, this feels a little scammy unless it is being done only because the posts are extremely long – in which case the better strategy might be to serialize the article across multiple posts.
I use only full feeds.
Since my blog engine is home-brewed, I started out with partial feeds, since I assumed that would be more convenient for people. Now that I’ve used a wide range of readers and subscribe to a few dozen feeds, though, it seems like the vast majority use full feeds. I’m strongly considering going that route.
I’m absolutely new to Blogging, and am actually writting my first Software Blog Post, right now. But from what I read, I believe that giving the user the choice between them would be the best, because everyone has differnet needs, and different preferences. Some people may just want a quick view some may want the whole thing, in the end, you don’t know, and every reader is different. So offer your viewers the choice.
Oh and I was also wondering what application you use to make the charts from the last poll. ^_^
I am in the full post feed crowd. I hate seeing a partial feed in my list and, unless extremely compelling, I typically skip the post and move onto the next relevant topic that has a full feed.
Most of my readers use some feed aggregation software. I suspect that most of them are subscribed on several subscriptions and too lazy to click on “read more” link :-) I just think so because I’m person of the same sort. So at least I give my posts a chance to be read.
I use full feeds. Nothing annoys me more than to be in Google Reader and have to click out to see the post. Following the sentiments of Steve Krug, “Don’t Make Me Click”.
I use the built option with wordpress. I think full RSS feed for my sparkling blog fits my need. :)
Live life and sparkle!™
Michelleladd.com/blog
Full feeds only. I personally think that a partial feed is an insult to your readers. If they want to scan the headlines they can visit front page of the blog …
Educating readers on what is RSS and why they should subscribe, combined with Full Feeds creates loyal and happy readers – isn’t this the Goal of our blogs?
I unsubscribe from any feed that doesn’t give me full content – period.
How about a follow-up poll on if you prefer full or partial feeds (coming from a reader’s perspective)?
Some debate that partial feeds give you a “taste” of the post, that will entice users to visit. But I think full feeds are better, because they give you the entire post.
I use full feeds because there’s nothing worse than seeing that ellipsis that signals there’s more content only if you click through. Honestly, I feel like I’m being manipulated just for the extra pageview. Pooh on that.
One of my daily check-ins has a partial feeds, and I only click through on the most tantalizing posts.
I think it is much better to provide Full RSS feeds…
I understand that we are loosing traffic but the reader will not bother wasting once more click untill or unless the headling is compelling enough!!!
http://mokshjuneja.blogspot.com
I am of two minds here. In my new blog, one that I want to make money from soon as I can find the time after my move, I will only offer partial feeds. I want people at the site reading and seeing my advertisers. Once I finalize both novel deals I have in the works I am going to put up an author blog to promote the books and there is no reason for me to not offer full feeds unless of course I am getting through traffic enough to support advertising. Once again if I blogging on either of the publishers sites they only offer partial feeds and there reasoning is sound, draw visitors, gain exposure, make money.
Darren I am getting this error after voting –
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘LIMIT 1’ at line 1]
SELECT ip FROM wp_democracyIP WHERE qid = 19 AND ip = LIMIT 1
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘ 19)’ at line 1]
INSERT INTO wp_democracyIP VALUES (, 19)
I recently evicted partial feeds from my RSS reader (unless it was content I REALLY wanted)—only to find that I was publishing one myself. That problem has now been rectified.
Partial feeds are inconvenient and disruptive.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I code my own blog and am looking to migrate from partial to full feeds. Should I put the entire blog post in the field of the feed (RSS 2.0) or is there a more appropriate field? The RSS tutorials out there are pretty basic, since most people use blog platforms.
I’m actually a bit surprised at how upset people seem to get about the partial/full issue. Personally, my intent in using partial feeds originally wasn’t to trick people into clicking through or feed my advertising; I was just trying to save them time and bandwidth (especially on the older readers).
I use the full feed pumped through feedburner.