I really can’t believe how many blogs still publish RSS feeds in summary. It’s annoying. However, I thought it would be interesting to see if Technorati’s Top 100 blogs publish full or summary RSS feeds. I went through all 100 and the results are: summary = 47, full = 52, unknown = 1.
Technorati Top 100 Blogs RSS Feed
The two reasons, that I came up with anyways, that blogs don’t publish full RSS feeds are:
- Lose advertising revenue
If you’re worried about not making revenue from lost visitors, you’re wrong. Many readers will still visitor your website if you can engage them through the title, subheadings, graphics, etc – they’ll want to comment. Additionally, there are many ways to monetize RSS feeds, including affiliate links and banners that are published only to RSS feed subscribers. - Scrapers steal post content
There are numerous plugins that can add links, copyright information, and blog info to the end of RSS feeds. Use scrappers to build up backlinks to your site. Worried about duplicate content issues with search engines? Don’t; they can tell the difference between a PR 0 scum blog and your blog.
According to a non-probabilistic poll on zdnet.com, 81% of responders prefer full text feeds. So why are your still publishing summary feeds? Build a community and loyal readership and worry about delivering your message, since that’s what blogs are all about, right?
