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In this article, I discuss my view on the heated debate of partial vs. full content RSS feeds, and why full content RSS feeds are my choice- no questions asked.

Brief Introduction to RSS

This article is geared more towards those who already know and probably use RSS feeds, so I will not go in to all the details of RSS, but here’s my short interpretation of what RSS is: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a group of web feed formats that notifies a subscriber of updated content on their subscribed feeds. RSS feeds are usually provided by websites such as news organizations and blogs, whose contents update frequently.

Hesitation to Change

I suppose there are two main reasons that people would prefer to offer partial feeds for their sites:

1. Plagiarism

Of course, it may not be uncommon to find your content on another site, mostly on an MFA (Made For Ads) blog if you hand out your entire post’s contents in your RSS feed. Well, before the world of RSS, millions of people still had to
deal with the problem of plagiarism. From the time a third grader peeks over the shoulder of their fellow student to bestselling novelists and everybody in between, if you publish content, whether it be text, graphic or video, you will
more than likely have to deal with plagiarism at one time or another.

In terms of full content RSS feed plagiarism, more often than not they will end up on an automated blog, which automatically pulls RSS feed content from a variety of sources and creates posts for each feed. This makes it look as if the website owner is busy writing content all day, when in reality, the blog is usually setup, automated and forgotten about. The website owners plug AdSense ads all over the site hoping to gain a few bucks per month from a website they
never need to visit.

You can do a few things to help yourself in this manner. Simply inserting a copyright notice or a link back to your site in your post may be all that is needed. Of course, this would not prevent your feed from being fed to another site, but it will let anyone who happens to visit the other site know where the article came from. Chances are, they will visit your site and over time, they will notice that the original automated blog is nothing but delayed, duplicate content of yours, and they will just skip the middleman. I d o this at the end of all my posts, where I put a link back to my site,
SiteFever.com.

Many people are worried that they will be slammed by the search engines for having duplicate content if this happens, so to avoid the problem they offer partial content feeds. Well, the debate on this subject can get violent so I’m not going to go there, but from what I understand, there is not too much
concrete evidence that duplicate content really hurts you all that much. On the same token, we go back to the discussion over who’s most important to write for-the search engines or your readers. But then, you may not get many readers
without the search engines, so it’s up to you to decide. As for me, I decided to start a blog to provide readers with informative information (in my opinion, anyway), so I would rather write for them. If I find well written content that I
enjoy reading on a PR0 site or worthless garbage on a PR8 site, you’ll find me at the PR0 site.

The bottom line is that if somebody wants to copy your content, they will. Even though trafficking drugs is illegal and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year to fight it, billions of dollars are made each year from people trafficking drugs. If somebody wants to do something bad enough, they will find a way to do it. If I have an article that I wrote and I want credit for, I would feel more comfortable knowing that somebody is duplicating my article via my full content RSS rather than directly from my website. At least I have some
control over what I include in my RSS feed, and I know that the content in it will most likely not be modified before it goes online some place else. On the other hand, if somebody is taking the time to actually visit my site to copy my content, chances are they will also take the time to tweak it a little bit to be sure there are no references to me left before they reuse it. I would rather somebody reuse my full content RSS feed that has a copyright notice and link to my site in it than have them manually copy and paste the same information
directly from my website.

2. Reduction in Website Visitors

This is another reason why website owners have been holding out on providing full content feeds. At first glance, it would seem like if you provide your entire article on your RSS feed, it would leave no reason for the subscriber to spend the time to visit your site.

On the contrary, many website owners report little or no change in traffic volume after switching to full content RSS feeds. With more and more cell phone and PDA users browsing the web, they are looking for content that loads quickly without all the bells and whistles. A full content RSS feed is their solution.
If they like your feed content well enough, chances are they will check out your site on their PC at a later time. By giving them a feed they can easily access on their mobile device, you will be easily accessible to people at work, who are traveling, etc. If you get them reading your feeds in the office, the content will be fresh in their minds and they may share what they read with their co-workers who will then go visit your site, and become another loyal subscriber.

In any event, the numbers speak for themselves. The majority of website owners who make the change to full content feeds do not notice a dramatic change in site traffic. I suppose this all depends on you, your content, and how
attractive and easy to maneuver your website is. If a visitor likes what they see, they will eventually return. As for me, I have been offering my full content RSS feed
since day 1 of my blog, but I still receive much more traffic to my site everyday than I get RSS subscribers.

Full Content Feeds? Here’s What to Do

Here are my suggestions that everyone who provides full content RSS feeds should follow (or at least consider):

1. Be sure to include your name and website in the feed. If the feed is duplicated somewhere else, it can always be traced back to you.

2. Use a service such as Fedburner. If you run all your feeds through Feedburner, you will be given very detailed stats on your feeds and subscribers. Feedburner tracks suspicious uses, including resyndication, which is a common warning sign
that somebody may be misusing your feed.

3. Include the live number of comments to each post in your RSS feed, with a link to the comments posted on your blog. This will give an incentive for the reader to click through to your site in order to read and leave comments on the
post.

4. In your RSS feed, be sure to post a notice to your subscribers that the RSS feed is delayed and in order to read everything in real-time, they should check out your website.

5. Most importantly, syndication aside, build a fan base. Build visitor royalty. By writing for your visitors, communicating with them and providing high quality original content, you will build loyal visitors who will be with you for the long haul.

Conclusion

Whatever you do, don’t forget the purpose of providing feeds in the first place-as a method for your visitors to easily receive updated content from your website. It’s like offering take-out food- a method to easily receive what you want, where you want it. If you call-in an extra large pizza, you don’t expect to receive a breadstick with a note telling you ‘if you want more, you’ve got to come in to our restaurant’. Give them what they want, or they’ll go someplace else.

What you choose to do and what is best for your feed all depends on its content and your purpose, and in the end, the decision is yours to make.

For more articles written by myself, John Robinson, please visit my daily updated blog on Internet marketing & SEO.