I’m a big RSS fan. It’s the only way I can follow the 100+ sites that I do, getting email notifications of all of these would drive me nuts and send my email inbox into overload.
What bugs me, however, is that some sites only offer a partial RSS feed, meaning they show the first paragraph or so and then you have to click through to the actual site to read the rest (I don’t get that).
[Editor’s Note: This is why the ChurchMag RSS feed isn’t truncated.]
If you’re a super-duper-big site and your ads are your biggest source of income, it may make sense (even though some of the biggest sites I follow offer full RSS feed–like our very own ChurchMag). A second reason is if your site has a pay wall, then it’s logical to not offer the full feed for free obviously.
But in all other cases I really wonder:
Why are you only showing a partial RSS feed?
The Argument for a Partial RSS Feed
I’ve asked people who do this for their reasoning and what they often say is that they want people to actually visit their site, as it offers better chances for them to click through, visit other pages on the site, etc. It also increases the chance of people leaving a comment, which is of course an extra step if you’re only reading the RSS feed of a site.
And I get that. I get that pageviews are important and that you want to draw people to your site. But I think it may actually have the opposite effect. I rarely click through to posts from sites offering a partial RSS feed. Often the first paragraph isn’t interesting or alluring enough to get me to do that, seeing as it’ll cost me extra time.
Which means you are actually setting up an extra barrier for people to read your blog. Now why would you want to do that? Isn’t it your goal to get as many people to read your blog in whatever way they can?
Serving Your Readers
I think it all comes down to the vision you have for your blog. If your vision is purely defined in terms of page views, visitors and the number of pages per visit and such, then I can see why you’d make the decision to only offer a partial RSS Feed.
I would still be very interested to know if it actually works, if your stats would indeed be lower of you’d start offering a full RSS Feed. I have a sneaky suspicion it wouldn’t make that much of a difference, since many people won’t take the barrier of the partial feed to click through to your site, meaning your posts get read less than when you’d offer a full feed.
My goal in blogging is to serve my readers, in my case mostly youth leaders. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to read what I’m offering and thus my site has a full RSS Feed.
Blog readers are often busy people who want to get things done easily and fast. Setting up extra barriers to read your blog will only hurt you in the long run.
Do you agree with me or have I overlooked an important reason to offer a partial RSS Feed?
Eric J says
We do not offer a full RSS feed for the following reasons:
To prevent content theft, we don’t want people to clone our blog through RSS,
Currently half of our ad income is going to hosting we need every ad impression that we can get
To encourage audience participation (which you already addressed)
I’m also pretty sure our blog network discourages it but i can’t find our contract.
On the other hand i use RSS readers on my iPhone and windows 8 (x86) that have readability built in to enable the full article text :p.
Eric J says
By the way i had this formatted so nicely and it got all mangled up 🙁
Rachel Blom says
I get the content theft argument, that is indeed an issue. I run a plugin that adds an extra line to my RSS Feed and links it back to my site, helping prevent content theft. But I agree, it’s a major problem for some sites.
As for the ad impressions, I understand where you’re coming from, but I wonder if it really pays off in the long run. Don’t you want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to read your content instead of ‘forcing’ them to click through? Have you ever tried offering a full feed to see if it makes that big a difference in your page views? Just wondering about that..
Adam Shields says
I don’t think so. Advertising, paywalls and page views are the main reasons.
I know I have more RSS readers than on page readers every day. I would like the page views because that would make it easier to sell advertising. But frankly I just don’t make enough money from advertising to justify it.
I personally hate shortened RSS, so I am not going to do it to others.
Rachel Blom says
That last reason is my main point. If you truly focus on your readers, it means making it hassle-free for them. Why do something you them you yourself dislike?
Andrew says
Follow the money. It is all about the ads.
I don’t follow many blogs that only post partial to readers. In fact most times I click “read” without actually reading the paragraph because of the frustration. I don’t think it encourages comments either. Having the full post in my reader doesn’t stop me from commenting. If I feel a comment is warranted I go to the site and offer a comment. It is as simple as point and click.
Jonathan says
Andrew,
I get what you mean. If I want to comment, I’ll Pocket the article to review on my browser later, since I tend to scan my feeds on my mobile. It’s easier to flick through them that way.
Rachel Blom says
I agree, reading the feed doesn’t stop me from commenting. I’ll go through the trouble of clicking through if I really want to comment.
Jonathan says
I offer a full RSS option through Feedburner (RSS feeds and email updates) and WordPress (email updates). I do not like it when others offer a partial feed, but when I come across that, I mark it to read later in Pocket (if the article intro grabbed my attention) and check it out in Pocket later. I get that some people want to offer partial, but I find it more limiting than anything else. Then again, I front the costs of my web services and currently don’t sell ad spots on my site. I do have two ads on my site in total – my own book and a service that I recommend based off personal use.
Then again, I don’t have a huge following and I need to earn the trust of the following first. Otherwise, what’s the point of ads if they discourage visits? I’m part of John Saddington’s Advertise Later model (http://tentblogger.com/when-to-start-advertising/). For bigger blogs, I suppose it makes more sense.
Rachel Blom says
I’m with you Jonathan, your approach makes sense to me!
Paul Clifford (@PaulAlanClif) says
My feeds are the full deal, but not all partial feeds are created equal.
One blog I read has such a small partial feed that I almost never click on it because there isn’t enough to make me want to.
Lifehacker’s feed has so many stories that I actually prefer the smaller feed, clicking on just the stories I want to read and ignoring the rest, happily not scrolling down to the bottom of a long story.
I guess it depends on the type of blog and how long the snippit is whether the full feed is better for the user or not.
Rachel Blom says
You make a good point, it does matter how much ‘preview’ they offer. Take Mashable for instance, they don’t offer a full feed but they show enough to make me want to read more. Offering just two lines doesn’t work for me most of the time…
Raoul Snyman says
@Eric WordPress advertises this as your RSS feed: https://churchm.ag/feed/
Rachel Blom says
Thanks for the tip, I’m sure Eric will look into that!
Eric Dye says
Yeah. We had something break. Thanks! #fixed
Greg Davis says
THANK YOU so much for keeping a full RSS feed! I despise partial feeds so very much. So much that many times I will even unsubscribe from a site if they only offer that. I too will click thru to leave a comment if the content is actually worth while (like this post). But if the site only gives a partial feed I know there is a marketing / sales / advertising hook and immediately I am turned off.
Publishers: let your readers decide on the merit of your content if they want to visit your site. You cannot force them to do so. Take closer notes from Seth Godin – you do not hold the power over information or content. Engage the reader and when them over. Treat him or her with respect then see how much better of a response you will get!
Eric Dye says
THIS.
Eric Dye says
If you make your content engaging, people will jump from their RSS feed to comment.
If you make your content shareable, people will share the content from their RSS reader, turning one potential pageview into several.
Moreover, you can monetize your RSS feed and it can also hold weight as to how strong your regular readership is to potential advertisers.
The said benefits of truncating your feed do not out-weight the positives imho.
Riley Adam Voth says
So I’ve always wanted to do a full RSS Feed, cause yea, I believe if you engage the readers, they’ll engage you when they want.
Yet, my QUESTION for everyone, then, is what’s the set-up for an RSS email subscription that can give a well designed email, but not the week of posts in one email???
In my case, I use MailChimp’s RSS to email deal, and it works great… but only if I do summaries only. Since I have way more mail subscribers than RSS readers, it’s what I’ve been stuck with. ANY ADVICE??? 🙂
Rachel Blom says
Sorry, can’t help you out there. I use Feedburner for both my RSS and email subscriptions, so I’m not familiar with that part of Mailchimp (I only use it for my newsletter). Anyone else?
Riley Adam Voth says
So then do your email subscribers get an email with the full post in the message? I could see that working for those who sign up for a “notify as soon as it’s posted” kind of email subscription, but not for an “end of the week summary” one cause that’s be a lot in one email. Thanks for your response! 🙂
Rachel Blom says
Yeah, they get the full post via email on the day I post it. I don’t do a weekly summary, never had people ask for it either.
Riley Adam Voth says
Hmm, interesting… I love weekly summaries personally. 🙂 It’s kinda the only way I’ll sign up for any thing email, cause I have too much daily stuff otherwise. Thanks for the response! I’ve got some options to consider now. 🙂