Ask the Reader: Partial or Full Post in RSS Feed?
Recently, a number of people have been asking me for my opinion about how much of a post one should show in their RSS feed. On Feedburner (which I know has been on the fritz lately as far as numbers are concerned), you can choose to have either your entire post shown, or just a piece of it with a link to read more back on the site.
(To change your setting in Feedburner, login and click on the “Optimize” tab, and then click on “Summary Burner” at the bottom)
I have always shown the full post, but a number of people have made a good argument for only showing the beginning portion or a teaser.
On one hand, people subscribe to RSS feeds to conveniently read material off-site. So why would we want to make things inconvenient by having them come back to the blog to finish the post?
On the other hand, it’s evident that by showing the full RSS feed, we’re not maximizing the amount of traffic on our sites because the subscribers have all of the content they need off-site. Plus, don’t we want our readers to engage in the comment section and possibly click on other things on our site to stay on it as long as possible?
It’s a toss up, and I’m really interested in what you think.
Are you for a Full Post, or a Partial Post in the RSS feed? Which do you prefer, and why? Is there a “happy medium” you’d like to share?
Posted on : July 9th, 2010
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77 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
Well, I like having the full post in my rss reader.
I do not think it makes a difference for me, as I always go to the blog by clicking on the title in my rss reader. But I would say I still prefer a full post in my rss reader. So whether it is a summary or a full post in my rss reader, I always go to the blog to read it. The rss reader is there just to notify me that there is a new post.
It is more pleasant to read the post on the blog, rather than the rss reader, for a number of reasons, some being better presentation on the blog and the ability to comment.
Kindest,
Nabeel
Also, I forgot to ask:
Aren’t there three options for showing the post?
Full Post, Partial post and just the Title of the post?
Thanks,
Nabeel
I think it depends on what blogging service you’re using. In WordPress, I only the see the option for “Full text” and “Summary.” Perhaps in Blogger or elsewhere, there’s that third option?
You’re right Nabeel. I would choose to also read a post from a blog than from rss reader.. i don’t know, but for me, it’s more comfortable to read it from a blog, and the ability to comment is amazing as well.
Full post !
it’s very convenient for me !
Ya it should be full post. If post is interesting he/she will come to blog to leave comment.
Thanks!
Full, otherwise I don’t read them.
I unsubbed from Techcrunch because of their ridiculous 3 click approach to RSS readers.
Both works for me, but I like the full posts better. For some feeds I never even leave my rss reader. I always read your posts on your site because I like the sites design
I would go for a full post for several reasons:
1> You can still run ads in your feed, if that is an important part of your income generation.
2> If you are writing engaging content, posing contentious arguments, asking relevant questions and providing a call to action, people will head over to your blog to complete the transaction.
3> Take this blog post as an example: The content is a question many of your readers will be wrestling with. I get your blog in my RS feed and I made the effort to come here to comment. If I hadn’t got as far as the question at the end of your post I probably wouldn’t have done that.
4> We keep saying that writing a blog is about giving. Giving value to your readers. Forcing a reader back to your blog makes it about you, and what YOU want.
It’s simple:
For maximum page views and income do partial feeds.
For reader friendliness do full feeds.
I think this sums it up well. I’d also add that I suspect full posts can help with getting links, as we bloggers tend to be the ones most picky about only reading blogs that show full posts.
I just switched from partial to full based on the recommendation from a friend. Too early to tell what the impact will be but I’m very interested to read the different perspectives of all of your readers at this blog!
I’ve got to say, I agree with Big Dan. I’ve had my feed set up to do partial posts. However, I will be changing that. The more I use my mobile devices (most prominently my iPhone) to read content, I see how annoying it can be to do partial feeds. I will just skip posts, more often than not, if they are partial feeds.
Full post without a doubt! I will unsubscribe to blogs that waste my time and make me click through to finish a post. If the content is compelling then I will jump over to the blog to leave a comment.
Like I did now, for example.
I’ve never really thought about it to be honest Pat. I have the full post set to show on my blog. I can see why having part of the post would be a good idea to get more people to visit your site but wouldn’t it end up annoying more people (and make them un-subscribe) than it prompted to visit the site
I like you having the full post in your RSS because it means I can read it at work with Google reader.
I’ve just switched from full to partial as an experiment, hoever I’m not sure I’ll keep it that way. As a reader I do prefer to see the full post, I’ll open it if I want to comment.
In reply to Dexter, I’m still getting ads on my partial feed.
Actually i dont care. In my GReader i read title and then i decide and do one of the two things:
- go to next post
- open post in the author’s website
I never read blog posts in the reader. Its not a friendly environment, for me RSS is for announcing new content, not strictly for reading.
Pavel,
Really? Since switching to using the Google Reader, my reading content efficiently has skyrocketed with far less distractions.
With over 100+ blogs on my feed, I can adjust my favorites up or down in my priority list.
Pat can probably verify, but last I heard, there is a time delay between when an article is posted and when it actually gets routed through a feed – and I don’t mean minutes.
I like full but I admit that 90% of the time I follow click through to the host site. However, these are all sites that I have read and know well, or I wouldn’t put them on my rss, so I really think this is win-win for myself and the author.
Full post, definitely. I’ve also unsubscribed from blogs that make you click on links to read the entire post.
Hi Pat,
Really great question.
This has been bothering me for quite sometimes now and I am just confused, I presently show full feed and I don’t know what to change.
I will e happy to know what everybody feels.
Thanks a lot,
-Onibalusi
I am finding that more and more readers aren’t even using feed readers anymore, they are getting their content from twitter and other SM sources. With the ability to add rss to Hootsuite and other apps, the Reader seems destined to be for us Old Timers.
Personally, I always preferred a full feed in my reader, so that is what I send out…
If I subscribe to an RSS feed and see that there are only partial posts, I immediately unsubscribe. I don’t follow blogs that deliberately inconvenience the reader. I often click through to the blog anyway, to read comments (or make a comment), but that’s my choice.
Full post, definitely! I can’t stand the partials. If I want to engage in comment conversation, I will (and do) click through on my own. I get annoyed when site owners try to “trick” me into it.
Full posts for me. Whenever I get a partial post in my reader either a) disregard it or b) if I really like the blog, I’ll “save it to read for later.” Which never happens, of course. I feel like a lot of people (but not all) who use partial posts are lacking in substance within their content, so they need an excuse to have people click over. Just slap a catchy heading on and hope for the best.
I like having the whole post in the RSS. Just because I want to read all my articles from the same place. Not having the full would make me not want to read the whole post. Anyone that doesn’t do the whole post does not get read (or retweeted).
Pat,
You bring up a great issue. Mine is set to full. Here is my opinion on this, it might sound a little negative, but it’s not. It’s about business.
If my goal were to have click throughs to my site, then I’d just do the partials. But I’ve learned traffic doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a start, but it’s not the means to an end.
I prefer putting the graphics to free offers at the end of the post, and as people view the entire post in entirety, they are presented with offers…calls to actions, etc. I want that to be right in their face, and if I have to get them to take extra clicks to go to the site to get that desired action, then it only makes sense you’ll have less response.
Not sure if that makes sense….so my vote…put the full post in the reader. Many will still click through to your site to comment, etc.
Brandon
Absolutely, 100%, full posts for me.
1) Reader experience is maximized. This is what good blogging is all about, right?
2) Less chance of alienating your readers. You can make the case that partial feeds are more beneficial to the blogger, because it forces people to come onto the site where they’ll be exposed to ads, be able to leave comments, and otherwise interact with the site.
However, I think if you’re actually trying to build a fan base, you NEED to offer the full feed. I’ve seen blogs that seemed interesting and tried to subscribe to them only to find that the RSS feed was a partial one. Sure enough, I don’t bother subscribing, and likely won’t return to the site unless something reminds me to. My RSS reader is too cluttered with other blogs that do offer full text – there’s simply no space for one that doesn’t.
Offering full text feeds allow people to follow everything you write, which will inevitably make them a lifetime fan and follower if you’re doing your part as the blogger (i.e. writing good content).
It seems like a close argument, but in my mind, it’s not at all. Don’t sacrifice long term fans for short term traffic.
“Offering full text feeds allow people to follow everything you write, which will inevitably make them a lifetime fan and follower if you’re doing your part as the blogger (i.e. writing good content). ”
I agree 100% Eric.
As a reader, I prefer the full post. Often I will read a post, find it interesting or edifying in some way, and click over to comment. When bloggers only show a portion of the post, they have less time to engage me. If the teaser isn’t darned intriguing, I just scroll by to the next item in my feed reader.
Basically, bloggers need to work harder to write dazzling copy in their teasers if they plan to only show part of the post.
Partial feeds are annoying. I’m not subscribed to any for a reason.
I am a subscriber to both Smart Passive Income and also Karol above me (Rediculously Extraordinary, which is also a great blog and I loved his ebook) … If either of you went to partial posts I would practically be forced to stop reading regularly. RSS is much easier to disguise
In the end, partial feeds are pretty much an obvious drag back to the main site and that seems rather on the sketchy side. I hated it when Lifehacker did it and I barely read it anymore.
Full posts all the way. I get annoyed by partial posts as it seems like a lack of respect for my time. I have unsubscribed from a few feeds because I got tired of having to click over to the site to finish the articles.
I prefer having the full post in the rss feed. It breaks the flow for me to have to constantly jump to different websites to continue reading, that’s one reason for the reader in the first place. I have cancelled subscriptions to blogs that changed their feed to be partial only.
Full post. I will unsubscribe from any feed that changes to partial or does not offer it. Write compelling content in your full and I will be more likely to browse over and comment.
Hey Pat,
Great topic to discusses. I’ve set my rss to full posts and i think full posts are way much better then partial.
Thanks for sharing this great Post.
~Dev
Full post. I don’t even keep partial feeds subscribed. Since RSS is the only way I read blogs, it means a partial RSS post loses me as a reader forever.
Full post. Partial posts lead to more visits to the website, but then, why bother? People might as well just bookmark it if they have to return to read the post anyway.
I read all my posts using the google reader “next” button. It seems like no one knows about this option- you put a button on your toolbar that allows you to read every new post from your reader in-context- on the actual blog page. I never even have to look at my reader.
I’m chiming in from my RSS reader to say, keep the full RSS available please!
Pat, regarding your latest post on RSS Feed – I prefer the full article. Leaving a teaser to force a reader to tab back to a blog is counter productive.
A fan like myself, is going to tweet and comment anyway. A fan like myself will of course follow a teaser rss feed for the full article (again because I’m a fan), but why would any blogger treat their fans like that? I know you put that out as a question in your article, but I would ask myself, “How would I like every article in my RSS feed to be a teaser and have to jump to each site just to be able to read the full article?” The blogs I follow that do that, usually get last priority in my “to read now” list. SmartPassiveIncome is the one exception. When you say jump, I’m already six feet up in the air…
Off the top of my head I would instead put links within the article, giving valid options and reasons for the reader to switch over to your blog (i.e. linking archive articles or video or jackpot entry to win “One Hour Consultation with Pat Flynn!”)
Speaking of which, I didn’t get my latte reward for winning the last contest…
If you only publish partial posts, the cost to the reader is the time it takes to click over to load the full post on your website. On this particular article, it took a full 15 seconds to load – a fluke, but it discourages readers to open posts unless they are extremely captivating. Respect your readers’ time and trust that your content is strong enough to encourage comments and interaction.
I’m an avid Google Reader user with more content than I can cover in a day. More often than non it seems like an inconvenience that I’d rather not take to see a summary, then click through to read the full article. I really have to be in a good mood and be very interested in that first paragraph before click through. Most of the time it doesn’t happen. At least with full articles I can still skim content and get the gist without spending extra time to investigate.
What seems to work best if I want to post a comment is actually place a Comments link at the bottom of the post that takes you directly to the entry field.
A lot of folks in favor summary RSS feeds like the click through to the website so they can get more ad views and clicks. One solution that many bloggers seem to be taking up is placing banners at the end of the feed. Depending on your website goals, this is also a really good opportunity to up-sell any related products or services you might offer.
Hey Pat,
ANOTHER excellent article! i visit your page everyday to see what you have published and each and everyday its always a great read and expert stuff!.
Personally I use RSS for ease of keeping track of sites that are updated regularly. Unless I want to make a comment (like this) I don’t visit the site but read posts in my feed reader. If a blog only offers partial posts I will unsubscribe immediately because I don’t want to waste my time loading up a site in my browser. You’re more than welcome to include Adsense and affiliate links in your posts, but unless I feel strongly about a topic I don’t want to visit the site. This is because it is far slower and many blogs have incredibly slow load times with all the bells and whistles that bloggers like to add like various adverts, facebook fan plugins and so on.
So I return the favor to my readers and only publish full post RSS feeds.
From speaking to other people I also know a lot of other people feel this way and won’t waste their time with a partial RSS feed.
Full post because that’s the only way I can read on a plane. And I do a lot of reading on planes.
Yep +1 Erica
My habit with RSS is to either read them or open them in tabs. Make sure the header is representative of the content and ignore partial post altogether–just do titles.
Or keep the full post.
Really, the only reason you shouldn’t keep the full post is because you really have an affinity for the way it’s formatted on your site.
/<3
I prefer having the full post. Although I do agree that only having the partial post will bring more traffic to your blog. If people are interested in the post you made and the full post is in your reader, they still will click the title and make a comment to your post. Plus, someone said it earlier here in the comments. You get to run ads in your reader!
From a reader perspective, I prefer full post. From a blogger perspective, I think partial post is a more clever method. However, I strongly believe that the readers come first. So full post is the way to go and we can always entice the readers to click the link to our blog to leave comments or read other related posts. =)
I have never posted here before, but I have been diligently following your website from my RSS feed for a little over a year now. But please, please, please DO NOT make your RSS feeds excerpt only. And here is my compelling case to not do it. Time is extremely important and limited to people. The reason we have RSS feeds is because we do not want to check individual sites to read content, we want a one-stop shop destination to get the information we desire. I can personally tell you that I unsubscribe from blogs simply because they would not allow full excerpt posts in the RSS feed, the most recent one being BusinessHacks after they didn’t respond to my e-mail suggestion to full excerpts.
I am not sure what the average number of sources there are in an average feed reader but I have about 40 in mine. That’s alot of information to digest on a daily basis. I subscribe to sites like TechCrunch, Gizmodo, and Lifehacker and sites like these post upwards of a dozen articles a day, when you multiply this volume of information per each subscription it becomes a very large amount of data to sift through. Now here is the clincher, if I am devoting so much time to getting through the data that is available immediately available to in my RSS reader, why would I even consider clicking to go through reading a partial excerpt, sure this may not seem like a huge hindrance but if you multiply the ten seconds it takes to load up a page by the volume of posts I read daily, the time lost becomes huge. The only way an excerpt system would work for me would be if the information was so incredible that I squeel like a little girl when I new post goes up, and let’s face it, I have high standards and only 2 subscriptions out of the 40 on my feed burner make the cut. The bottome line is this, what makes your information so much more different from a similar blog that allows full excerpt posts, if you have two similar blogs and one takes 10 seconds sooner to read than the other, more the likely your gonna follow the former over the latter more. Finally I mean this in the most sincere way possible, but if you switch to excerpts only you will force me to unsubscribe and never read your posts again.
Sincerely,
Year-Long Reader
Another thing I forgot to mention, and maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine, but I plain just don’t like bloggers who only post excerpts. When all I see is a title, and a few sentences after that followed by a “click to continue” button I am immediately put off. To me what this conveys is that blogger thinks, “Hey I’m the shit, and my content is so incredibly awesome and valuable that it’s OK if I waste ten seconds of their time every time I put up a new post.”
I always click and come to the blog to read the post anyway so I don’t really care. But if I have to choose I would say full.
Another vote for full post.
From my perspective, you’ve won if somebody is reading your post regardless if they’re are at your site or using a reader. Personally, I really really like using a reader so I don’t have to hop to different pages for each post. If I have something that I want to add to the conversation, I will absolutely pop on over to the actual blog page and leave my comment.
I would go as far as to say that by going the whole article route, you may even discourage fluffy comments! If I’m already at your site, it’s tempting to just comment for commenting’s sake. If I’m reading it in a feed reader, I’ll probably only go to the trouble of jumping over to the blog to leave a comment if I have something I really want to say. I mean do 40 consecutive comments of the “Great Post! I totally agree! You rule!” variety actually enhance the conversation?
As a blogger, I provide a full feed. I feel to do otherwise (especially when you haven’t reached a large readership) would be cheap and tacky. The reader comes first.
As a reader, I won’t subscribe to any feed that isn’t full.
Partial feeds can work, but only a few select blogs can pull it off.
Full post all the way!
Full post. Frequently, the title or excerpt of a partial post fails to convey the value in the full post. So, if I’m skimming for interesting content, I may pass something by that would have increased my opinion of the site. If you want me to visit the site, just ask — I understand that the full feed is a benefit for me.
Or, put ads in the feed. I’m not adverse to them (and I pay about the same amount of attention as site-based ads).
I’ve found that a full feed with ads in them are quite good. This way, you don’t really lose out on any traffic (as the only real reason to care about traffic is ad dollars).
I write very long content rich posts. I stopped publishing full feeds as soon as my blog became very popular and the scraping by scammers began with avengeance. I got very fed up of finding my posts on other people’s blogs decorated with every assortment of advertisements. They were making money off my work and to put it bluntly I wasn’t having it and it had to stop
I stopped the full feed and switched to partial feed and the scraping more or less stopped as a result. Mind you I’d already built a fan base and people knew that the link is worth clicking if they’re interested in the topic. Also, I find true fans are very understanding when I explain to them why I had to switch my blog to a partial feed
The other reason for having a partical feed when you have a blog which has occasional posts of interest only to a niche is that those who aren’t interested in that particular post don’t have to download the full post or read it if they’re not interested
After switching to a partial feed, I focused on making the titles for my posts and first couple of sentences as informative as possible so people get a good grasp of what the post is about.
Pat:
You’ve created some great discussion with this post. I am with the majority of the folks that have commented so far…Full feed. I am not currently subsctibed to any partial feeds.
It is more convenient for me. I came on over from reader your feed just so I could leacve a comment. I do not mind clicking over to a site from the feed if the content is good and I want to leave a comment.
- Rick
I really believe in full feed. I read your blog in my Google rss reader on my phone or at my desktop depending on what I have time for. When the content is good enough you want to be engaged.
Most of the time I will not even bother to click over if I have only a partial feed. Usually, the one sentence or one paragraph isn’t enough too really get to want you want to read.
Maybe after you have enough people reading you could switch but I need to know the content is going to be good before I make sure to follow the little read more link.
Full RSS
If I am using an RSS reader, I want to read the entire post. Partial is just annoying. In fact it might make me UNSUBSCRIBE if it is only partial. That is why I offer full on my site.
BUT, your focus should be building your list as you do, with rss as a secondary option for those who want it.
Wow, look at all these RSS readers you’ve coaxed into making a comment, that includes me. I prefer full RSS too and I don’t tend to follow links from partial posts to read the full ones. I do for some Sitepoint ones, but the titles tend to sound good and useful, and I certainly don’t read them all.
I have one that I’m on the verge of unsubscribing to because I never click through and that’s for Big Girl Branding. All I get is a title (which is sometimes difficult to understand because she puts something in front of the title) then a big bit with her picture and logo telling me nothing, then a bunch of social networking icons inviting me to share the post (that I haven’t read and don’t know what its about) and if its a guest blogger she’ll tell me a sentence who’s doing it. But I still don’t have a clue what the post is about and with a reader full of content I don’t try. (Sorry BGB, if you read this) Maybe everyone should sign up to their own RSS feed to test what its like.
Entire posts can still drive people to the site. You asking an interesting question for commentors for example, but as a newbie to blogs I often find I arrive to read previous posts that I missed because they are referred to in the post and they sound useful. Darren at Problogger is good with that one.
A poll here would have been excellent,Pat.i would like to get full posts,by the way.
As a reader, I’d choose full post. I would also choose a post from a blog rather than from rss reader. For me it’s much more friendly and comfortable reading the post from the blog.
Thanks for sharing this Pat.
Gary
As a personal preference I prefer the partial approach. I use Google Reader to view my many feeds and I like to scroll through the posts, clicking through to the actual site for any that I feel the desire to read the whole article. If the whole post is displayed and I decide I’m not interested in a particular article then I have to scroll through the whole post unnecessarily.
I prefere partial posts, for then I have to go to your site and then I can scroll through some older posts and see the reactions of others.
Great stuff, putting the readers first, authentic listening and making a real change. My two cents, full is better, I’ll click through to comment and you do me a service by not forcing me to your website.
Definitely prefer a full feed; in my opinion it is not helpful for a user to have a partial feed. At least the way I use RSS.
Full is great for the readers…but one thing you might want to consider is that Black Hatters love finding full RSS feeds to add to their auto blogs. I guess it depends what you think of your work being scraped on to a crummy auto generated Google bait blog.
I also hate scrolling through long posts in my Google Reader as well. I just need partial to see if I am interested. If I am I will click through to your website.
I guess full might be better for mobile users though.
Another vote for full feeds here. As a reader, I like the convenience of being able to read new posts in my feed reader. If I feel the need to comment on an article, I’ll click through to the site and leave a comment.
Additionally, today you can customize your RSS feed to add additional stuff like advertisements and even links to similar material. So getting people to click through to your site really isn’t as difficult.
I think most people who are concerned about the full/partial feed are probably really concerned about those bottom feeders who steal content using a website’s RSS feed. Unfortunately, even switching to partial feed doesn’t make that go away because they will simply come to your site and copy paste by hand. At least with a full RSS feed, you can put links in your content that goes to other pages on your website that readers may click through to the original site.
full post – partial posts piss me off. More so if reading off iphone
Hi Pat!
Thanks for another FAB post! I never really understood the difference between full post or summary in the feeder… Now I totally get it! =) I love learning new things!
Personally, I only use the RSS feeder to check if there’s any new content. If so, I head over to the blog. I find it more personal, and that’s the way I like it. Anyways, just changed my setting to full text, so hopefully some people will be happy about that… =)
I will offer my anecdotal experience: a few months ago, I tried to switch my RSS feed from the full post to an excerpt. I have about 6000 RSS subscribers and they staged a full-on REVOLT. People were angry and very vocal about how much they hated a partial post. I reverted after a couple weeks.
I have my financial money blog set up to show the current 2 posts as full and the older ones as partials. It seems to work out good. I really don’t mind the partials as I can scan through them and if I see something I like I will then click through.
As a consumer, I prefer full feeds for easy reading.
As a publisher, I prefer the partial feeds to have better stats.
Hint: with the service http://fullfeeds.org you can get any feed in full.
of course full text!!!
I use RSS reader only to have notifications of new posts because I prefer read by the browser;) so for me it doesn’t matter.
Sorry for my english if is incorrect, I’m still learning;)