Full vs Partial Feeds
March 24, 2008 ▪ 
Web 101
Over at the Blog Herald, there’s a great article on why people shouldn’t be using partial feeds. The author makes a lot of good points, essentially boiling it down to the fact that there are no benefits to using a partial feed. It doesn’t deter sploggers from stealing your content and it doesn’t bring extra traffic to your site; you are basically just frustrating your regular readers and alienating new ones. Read the full article for more.
What I find funny is his rationalizing of why it’s okay for some blogs (*ahem* the one he’s writing on) to use partial feeds. The only instance in which I think it’s okay to offer a partial feed is if you offer a full feed as well. I have seen several blogs that offered a full feed with ads and a partial feed without ads. I have no problem with that, it even kind of makes sense. Although, I can’t imagine there are an overwhelming number of people that hate ads so much they would put up with the frustration of a partial feed. But different strokes, right?
You should respect your readers enough to let them choose how they want to view your site. Offering just a partial feed takes that choice away and more often than not, they won’t bother reading at all.
Lin says:
I’ve never understood why some blogs use partial feeds rather than full feeds.
Maybe it’s to ensure subscribers will click over to their site, perhaps click on ads and comment, but I agree that people should be given the choice between them.
I just prefer full feeds, and I tend to click over anyway in order to comment.
mrs. chicken says:
I decided to go to full feeds. I think it was a good decision.