Setting Blog Feed to Summary or Full Post for Feeds?

19 May, 2010 - 07:00 AM - 16 Comments

In talking with some bloggers over my choice of setting the DragonBlogger.com RSS feed to being a summary feed, I started wondering what was the most common practice by other bloggers and wanted to get a feel for how others felt about RSS and email blog feeds.

There are advantages to having your blog feed being only a summary instead of a full post and these include:

Not having duplicate content on your own site (feeds can cause duplicate content if indexed on Google)
Users who subscribe via RSS or Email have to come to site to read full post (can bring more visits to site).
FaceBook Fanpage which reads in feed also doesn’t have full post and directs more traffic to site.
Easier for readers if you write multiple posts a day (they will see all summaries and clearly see more than 1 article was written)

Yet there are also reasons for having a full blog post in your feed as well:

AdSense can be included inside the article feed for potential earnings from feed
Readers may not click to visit site to read article just from title/summary yet may read full post if available
More value to being an RSS subscriber, they don’t have to visit site to actually read new articles

One of the things I like about the Yet Another Related Posts Plug-in (YARPP) is that it shows related post title and descriptions even on a RSS feed summary and looks like this:
feedpartial Setting Blog Feed to Summary or Full Post for Feeds?

I like how it includes my original article title, description and then shows related articles. I think it increases my chances of a reader visiting the site from the RSS feed instead of just reading the post in the email and not visiting the site. So I decided to run a little 30 day experiment and set DragonBlogger.com to having an RSS Feed Summary instead of full posts in RSS. This will let me know if my “Direct” site traffic increases versus previous months. (When people click to your site from an email program, it mostly shows as “Direct” traffic since there was no referral).

What is your opinion and point of view on blog RSS feeds, do you prefer RSS Feed Summary or Full RSS Feeds of your blog posts? Did I miss any pros and cons for either side that I didn’t consider?

-Dragon Blogger

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Written by Justin Germino (1518 Articles Published)

Working in the IT Industry for over 10 years and specializing in web based technologies. Dragon Blogger has unique insights and opinions to how the internet and web technology works. An Avid movie fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.

Follow Justin Germino on Twitter @dragonblogger

SunainaEve 5 pts

thanks for awesome article http://greaterpost.com

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Paul

I always prefer full feeds - and also provide the full feed on my blog. I also use the related posts plugin on my blog so I do have the additional links in my feed to provide another means for someone to visit my blog.

Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online Nigeria

It's back and working just fine. Thanks ;-)

Please Please Please, switch back to full updates or install Stephen Cronin's DualFeed plug-in then send me a link to the full rss feed. ;-)

As you already know Full blog updates are more convenient for me and I always come back to leave a comment.
.-= Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online Nigeria´s last blog ..Make Your Blog 10x Faster With W3 Total Cache Plug-in =-.

dragonblogger

I have tested it enough time, I am switching back to full feeds today. Click on the subscribe EMAIL button at the top right of my page.

Aury (Thunderdrake)

There's definitely a trade-off between the two. I can't determine which angle would be superior. But I think it ultimately comes down to the blog. I think punchier blogs would be better tailored to full feeds, while more verbose ones would suit a partial feed.
.-= Aury (Thunderdrake)´s last blog ..Hoarding Dragon Basics – Investing in Precious Metals =-.

Murlu

For usability sake, I leave my feed with full post because I don't want to force my readers to click multiple times just to read the post.
.-= Murlu´s last blog ..Become A Guest Blogging Superhero =-.

benwaynet

I don't follow RSS feeds that are not full feeds. If the post and site are good enough people will visit to leave comments or to dig deeper into the site.
.-= benwaynet´s last blog ..Bookmarks for May 5th through May 21st =-.

Thanks for sharing your input and information.

Dana @ Blogging Tips Blog

I use full feed in my blog. To avoid loss traffic, I usually put the link inside the post and also related post below.

113Tidbits

I've used both for each service. Feedblitz and Feedburner from Google have options to have both enabled for subscribers.
.-= 113Tidbits´s last blog ..Thirsty Thursday – Tartini =-.

Hami

My personal favorite is to switch to full posts initially. AS your RSS readers grow you can offer them to better stick to the blog version that means by offering Summary only.
.-= Hami´s last blog ..How To Increase Your Blogging Efficiency =-.

Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing

Full feed. Always full feed.

1. The #1 reason bloggers go summary is to "cleverly" get people to the site in hopes of getting ad clicks.

The problem with this theory is, all but the first time readers KNOW this is why and you're insulting everyone's intelligence.

"Easier for readers if you write multiple posts a day (they will see all summaries and clearly see more than 1 article was written)"

They can't scroll a full feed to see other articles? Plus, you can also set up your feedburner account to show the title of the first article and have it say, "plus 1 more" or however many there is.

Ya want more people to click through to you're site? Keep the full feed and make sure the article is good enough for a comment, or at least make the reader want to see what else ya got when finished.

Btw, The "you're" used here was general, I don't mean YOU DB. :)
.-= Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..10 Social Share Sites Chosen – Do You Agree? =-.

I see your point, but am still testing my partial feed summary in RSS nonetheless. I have seen a 20% increase in traffic to my site since switching to RSS summaries, but haven't fully clarified if it is because of more "direct" visits as people clicking from an email or RSS I think would show up as direct and not a referral.

BlazingMinds

I've always been a bit unsure of having a full feed or summary, I have tried both in the past, but haven't really seen that much of a difference when it comes to stats, but, I can see the point of coming to the post if they only read a summary... Hmmm, still not too sure.
.-= BlazingMinds´s last blog ..Are We Spending To Much Time On The Internet? =-.

I have been using Summaries and haven't seen any unsubscribes after making the switch, but have seen a 20% increase in traffic to my site in the last month (may not be related to RSS summaries, still trying to determine how much it helped if any)