Comments on: Why Not to Switch to Partial Feeds

By: Charles Bennett

Charles Bennett — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:12:33 +0000

Youre so cool! I dont suppose Ive read anything like this before. So nice to seek out somebody with some unique thoughts on this subject. realy thanks for beginning this up. this website is something that is wanted on the internet, someone with a bit originality. useful job for bringing something new to the internet!

By: Rose

Rose — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:19:44 +0000

You make good points, but I still publish on short. If bloggers really want to read what I’ saying they’ll come to my blog, if not then I guess I have lost a few readers.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:29:30 +0000

Thanks for the mention but- I think you have me backwards! I posted that I dislike partial feeds and that I rarely go read the full post. I’m much more likely to click through to comment on a full feed than to see what the partial feed says.

By: Chris Marshall | Martial Development

Chris Marshall | Martial Development — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:43:27 +0000

Jonathan, you may be right. However, the article you referenced doesn’t actually give any numbers (“…I think…unlikely to…” etc). Considering that, and the fact that Feedburner is in the business of drawing traffic OFF your site…

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:56:33 +0000

Chris: While it is an interesting idea, as I said in the article, FeedBurner has said that there is no difference in the number of clicks received by partial or full feeds. Many report more clicks on full feeds than partial ones.

I’m not sure how or why that works, but I can not argue with the numbers…

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:13:40 +0000

Misti: Thank you for your feedback on this!

By: Chris Marshall | Martial Development

Chris Marshall | Martial Development — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:43:46 +0000

No good reason for ? How about discovering which of your posts were deemed worthy of a click, and which were not?

By: Misti Sandefur

Misti Sandefur — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:35:12 +0000

I too wish Blog Herald would switch to full feed. I will only click to read the entire post if it gets my attention within the first few sentences. To be honest, I don’t click to read the entire post very often. The reason is because I subscribe to RSS feeds to make reading the many blogs I’ve subscribed to much easier, and I want to see the full feed in my RSS Reader. With that said, if BH were to switch to full feed, you wouldn’t lose me as a reader. In fact, I would read more of your posts.

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:54:19 +0000

Armen: Thanks for the praise. I have to admit I underestimated the animosity that many of the BH readers had regarding the partial feed on the site. I will have to ask around and see if perhaps there is any willingness to experiment.

Thank you all for your input!

By: Armen

Armen — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:16:41 +0000

I agree with some of the consensus above. Who said Blog Herald readers don’t mind? I know I do. This is a real pet hate of mine, so I’m going to stop now before I go off on a rant!

Just to point out, I’m subscribed to BH, but I hardly ever click through, meaning, I hardly ever read the full articles of what they publish. This is one of the few times, so well done Jonathan.

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:04:18 +0000

Ronald: I agree. I don’t control the RSS decisions on this site but I too would like to see an experiment. SplashPress did so with Performancing and things seemed to go well enough there.

Sean: Yes, you did. But let me reiterate that there are situations where it might be appropriate and that I don’t control the RSS policy at the BH. You’ll find, on my sites, that I do use full feeds.

Sue: I understand and no, I don’t think you’re being in appropriate. At least I take no personal offense. I actually subscribe to a great deal of partial RSS feeds in the format of Technorati and Icerocket watchlists so my RSS workflow is a bit different. Still, I do understand.

Sue: Those are the two I’m familiar with. However, the way I achieved it on my site was to just edit the actual RSS file. There are instructions on the Web about how to do it. Worked fine for me.

By: deuts

deuts — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:39:48 +0000

If that’s the case, why is it that The Blog Herald still doesn’t have the Full Feed plugin installed so that the whole posts can be read in my favorite feed reader. I always encounter the “more” tag in this blog.

By: Michael Clark

Michael Clark — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:30:53 +0000

I also second the notion that BH should offer Full Feeds. Practice what you preach. I know you’ don’t want your home page super long, so you use the more tag, but maybe Sue’s suggestion of the Full Feed plugin would be useful.

By: Sue

Sue — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:00:01 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think using the “excerpt” function in WordPress cuts the feeds off like the more tag does. Either way, there are two plugins I use that show excerpts on the site but still send out full feeds. One is Post Teaser, which automatically displays an excerpt to a length you specify, but doesn’t use the more tag, so it tricks your WordPress feed into sending the whole thing, and the other (which I use in the sidebar with the more tag) is Full Feed. Which does exactly what it says, which is the way WP used to do it.

@Ronald, that is so true. Several articles have been posted about sending full feeds on here, but I still get only partials from the Blog Herald. Should be practicing what their writers preach. :)

By: Sue @ TameBay

Sue @ TameBay — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:49:46 +0000

I’ve been looking at where our content has been scraped to recently, and it seems in many cases, they’re just taking the first sentence or three of several posts and mashing them into one splog post. You’re right: the original feeds don’t really have anything to do with what the splogs publish.

sites, such as the Blog Herald itself, that have used partial feeds for a very long time. In those cases, the audience has been built using partial feeds and the readers have shown that they don’t mind.
Hope I’m not being inappropriate, but, I DO mind. Every time I have to click on your partial feed to open the whole post, it annoys me. I see “Blog Herald (3)” in Google Reader, and find myself hoping it’s three headlines that don’t look interesting so I don’t have to bother clicking. Sorry :-( but I thought you should know.

By: Sean O

Sean O — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:04:32 +0000

Didn’t I find your article off of a partial feed?

By: Ronald @ RA Project

Ronald @ RA Project — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:34:48 +0000

Jonathan,

You make excellent points, but I would still challenge Blog Herald to at least experiment with full feeds to see the reader reaction. Simply because the site was built on partial feeds doesn’t mean it has to continue.

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:29:09 +0000

I agree. That and, perhaps, embedding your CC license or another copyright notice. There is little to be gained from switching to a partial feed.

By: Jeremy Steele

Jeremy Steele — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:13:35 +0000

Just toss a fingerprint at the bottom of full feed posts – works well enough.