I have nothing against partial feeds. In fact, I personally recommend partial feeds in some cases such as blogs that post very frequently (more than once a day every single day). Partial feeds are useful in cases like these since subscribers will likely not really be interested in reading every single post and will find it easier to scan partial feeds and just click on the posts they are interested in actually reading.
When it comes to transitioning from full to partial feeds though I have to say that in most cases this would be a huge mistake, unless your blog is really new and your readers are still very few and haven’t had to time get too used to your full feeds. Transitioning to partial feeds is a mistake in my opinion because:
1. Most of people that opted to subscribe to your blog feed do so because they want to read or at least scan your entire posts via their feed readers. They don’t want the hassle of having to click to and be redirected to your blog to read each post they find interesting unless they feel like commenting.
2. Even if readers did not have any real preference between full and partial feeds before subscribing to your blog they will have grown accustomed to full feeds and most people just don’t like change.
3. It can be insulting to regular readers. Unless you explain to readers your reason for shifting to partial feeds and your reason is something other than wanting to protect your content from scrappers it will be insulting to readers because you obviously put more importance in protecting your content than making things more accessible to loyal readers.
In the end, I say it pays to stick to your orginal feed format.
Originally posted on September 21, 2009 @ 9:14 am
