Hmm… I like your blog, Jen… but you changed to snippets recently. I wish you’d change back to full post feeds.

I liked the other way better - even blogged about avoiding snippets for feeds this morning!

By James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises on Nov 2, 2007

I’ve never published full feeds intentionally, so if I changed the blog recently (don’t recall as I’ve been on the backend of so many of them lately), it was just because I didn’t set it up the way I wanted previously.

While I understand that some readers prefer full feeds, I don’t agree with publishing in that form, because not long ago I had a content thief swipe an entire site of mine (content, design, the whole deal). The months I spent getting the guy’s site shut down wasn’t worth having feeds available in that sense. It’s been hard enough keeping track of the folks who just steal an article here or there, and I’m not one to say “oh well, it’s just flattery.”

Even if I did have full feeds, it shouldn’t have been publishing the full feeds for most of the posts, because I cut most posts off manually to not have them display full on the home page for duplicate content, aesthetic, and other reasons.

So sorry for the inconvenience. But none of my blogs will be intentionally set to full feeds at least for the foreseeable future.

By Jenn on Nov 2, 2007

It may cost you readers, Jen. Like… a *ton* of readers. Labnol at Blogspot increased their readers by 1000 just from switching to full feed. And it’s not “some readers” who prefer full feeds - Problogger ran a poll and 75% of people wanted the whole shebang. (See? This isn’t just about me! lol)

Site scraping happens whether you publish full or partial feeds. I also think you’re misinformed about duplicate content… most probloggers don’t cut off posts. Sure, it looks nice, but it’s one more click each time that I have to make… and that isn’t a good thing, in the virtual world. Doesn’t do much for me, either.

While I understand your position, and I know a bad experience can make a person batten down the hatches, keep in mind there are tons of people out there who aren’t going to steal your content and want to know what you have to say.

Anyways. Seems your position is firm, but I did want to provide you with some more info to perhaps get you thinking about the importance of remembering your readers.

By James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises on Nov 3, 2007

Yes, my position is pretty firm on this subject. I have actually read the Problogger information, as well as the other side of the issue (which is highly debatable).

Remember… Problogger’s tech/net-savvy audience doesn’t represent the population as a whole or other niche audiences - his results would be entirely expected given the audience following that blog and those results don’t really make for solid research because of that. In my case the vast majority of readers come directly to the site instead of through the feeds, and traffic is growing quite quickly and steadily, so I’m not interested in messing with success for now, especially when it would add so much additional hassle on the scraper front (I’m much less concerned about people publishing a short excerpt with a link than my whole posts / whole site).

As far as people scraping one way or the other, that may be true, but I find them scraping much more through feeds than doing so manually. You also have to keep in mind that many bloggers don’t worry about pursuing those folks, because as long as they’re indexed first they don’t consider it worth the hassle. I’m not just a blogger but a professional freelance writer. When my work starts to show up all over the Web, it decreases the value of my writing to potential clients; especially with the fact that I do offer (and charge for) reprints - so it affects more than search engine rankings in my case.

While I do appreciate the concern and suggestion, this is one of those cases where there’s no solution that’s going to make all people happy all of the time, and I have to make the best business call in my particular case.

By Jenn on Nov 3, 2007

Jenn,
It’s a testament to how much I like your blog that I continue to subscribe even though you offer only partial feeds. Usually, I unsubscribe immediately to sites that don’t have full feeds. There are too many good blogs out there, and I want to be able to read as quickly as I can. You are one of only two blogs that I break that rule for … but I still grit my teeth every time I have to come to the site.

By Lillie Ammann on Nov 3, 2007

I love ya dearly for reading (and commenting), but for the time being, I won’t be making changes on that front. Perhaps I’ll consider it in ‘08 while I’m revamping several areas of my business, using just this blog as a test. No promises though, and if I do test then and it causes problems like it did in the past, the change won’t be permanent. I may be stubborn, but I’ll try not to be overly rigid… just know that in the end I’ll do what’s best business-wise overall, and unfortunately that rarely means making everybody happy.

By Jenn on Nov 3, 2007