stinkerpants design

So, here’s my $0.02. This is going to sound totally hypocritical, but hear me out. I have my blog set to display only a partial RSS feed… but I, too, find it annoying. For me, it’s not to DRIVE traffic to my blog for traffic purposes (regarding getting hit numbers up and because I want people there) because frankly, the number of visitors/month means nothing to me. I have no advertising on my blog, I don’t sell on etsy so I’m not trying to get people to go there, etc. For me, it’s simple. I’m a Ph.D. student, and in between writing about my life as a newlywed, posting recipes, etc., I write about being a female Ph.D. and the trials and tribulations I face in the lab. Because I acknowledge that someday, someone that knows me at my university MIGHT somehow stumble across my blog and put 2 and 2 together and guess it is me, I try not to say anything negative, but I’d like to have the heads up that someone who might know me is reading. So I do it so that I can scope out the location of my readers, and check out if I’m getting an increase in hits from the local area, and especially if I’m getting any from my own university IP address. Were I not concerned about this issue, I would definitely just go ahead and list the whole content of my blog in the RSS feed.

As far as people reading your Twitter status, they can subscribe if they are interested (I’m a subscriber)… and anyone who comments frequently clicks over on a semi-regular basis anyway (though of course I am sure lots of people read and do not click over).

To sum, I agree that partial feeds are annoying… but if you would switch to a partial feed for your own reasons, I would certainly be willing to click over from Google Reader, considering that I ask the same of my own subscribers.

Partial feeds annoy the junk out of me. Whether or not I click over completely depends on the blog. If it hasn’t already caught my interest, I don’t click over. But for YOUR blog… I would, because I always read the whole thing. So… I guess I’m split. As a random reader, I hate them. As a Stinkerpants fan, it won’t bother me if you do. :)

Sara-
I use Sitemeter.com (the free version) to track the stats for my blog. It will only track the last 100 hits, so if you generate a lot of traffic, you have to check frequently if you’re actually looking to keep up with where they are coming from (as opposed to just number of hits, etc.). If you pay the $7 (I think)/month, it will save the stats on more. So for me, because I want to keep tabs on if, perhaps, the head of my lab stumbles across my blog, I check in periodically. It’s really easy to set up and install — you just add a tag into the code of your blog.

As far as seeing the look of webpages INSIDE of Google Reader, you can do that, too. If you use Firefox, you can download the BetterGReader extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6424). This adds on a “Preview” button, which will, IN the Google Reader frame, take you to a view of the webpage itself, so you don’t have to leave your Google Reader. It is PERFECT for the abbreviated RSS feeds. If you use Firefox, you should totally check it out. It also solves your problem of sometimes wanting to see the blog webpage. If you do try it out and have any questions about it, feel free to ask!

That first paragraph should be that I check in periodically during the day, not just periodically in general. Because I’ll go through more than 100 hits/day. And to clarify, Sitemeter will retain for a full year the number of hits that you receive and track them for each month, but it is just the IP information (location of visit, time of visit, referring URL, etc) that is stored for the last 100 visitors.

Oh, except I also made an exception for the former Mrs. Gingerbread. :)

I’m a fan from the Weddingbee days too. =) I very much dislike partial feeds. Often, there’s not even enough text to tell if it’s worth it to click through. Also, if I’m checking my Google Reader at work, I don’t want to log hits to blogs I’m reading.

Julie - Thanks for posting about Better GReader! I’m downloading it right now! What a great solution to seeing the cute layouts of your favorite blogs.

I hate partial feeds b/c I typically try to do (the bulk) of my blog reading (from google reader) on my iPhone. It keeps me company when I have to wait in line, want to take a quick break from work without increasing my internet time (haha), etc. I only subscribe to one partial feed blog (Yeah, yeah…ex-Mrs. GB) but I wouldn’t HATE having more. I like to comment, so I often do a click over to the blogs to comment once a day or so…I’ve considered making mine partial feed, but b/c it annoys me so much I won’t do it (yet) :) I agree that it sucks to not see the prettiness of the blogs though.

I hate partial feeds and unsubscribe from blogs that have them. If a post is interesting and I want to comment on it, I’ll visit the site but I don’t have time to do it for every post. Plus if I’m reading on my iphone, it’s a nightmare to have to keep loading up web pages on 3G.

I have to say I am not a fan of partial feeds. I read all of my subscriptions through my Google Reader (which I love) and I truly get annoyed with blogs that do partial feeds. The point of the Reader is to not have to navigate to every different blog on your list… I understand the issues some of these people have had and the reason they’ve chosen to do it (such as stalkers- creepy!). I still subscribe to a number of them and only click to go directly to their blog if those first few lines intrigues me. It’s a tough call… do what you feel is best for you!

Partial feeds are very annoying. Furthermore, they tend to drive my traffic away since I often end up deleting them from my subscriptions. If I do decide to continue my subscription, I tend to gloss over the partial feeds on my reader instead of clicking over to the site to read the entire post. Only in very rare instances when the title or abstract prompts me to read more/comment do I ever click over to the site.

Oops, I didn’t know that partial feeds were so hated. I will reconsider using them. I do it so that I can get a sense of where traffic is coming from, but if people are not reading because they hate partial feeds it sort of defeats the purpose. Thank you all of you sweethearts who are making an exception for me :)

DON’T DO IT!!! Everyone else has covered the topic well, but just had to add my voice to the “I don’t follow partial-feed blogs” chorus. Like others, I have one exception for Mrs GB. And only ’cause she’s a friend. So of course you’d make my cut too. But otherwise, I have unsubscribed from blogs that I actually *adored* because of the feed issue. Life’s too busy and I have too many feeds to keep up with … it’s just not worth it.

(And yes, I totally see the problem with the fact that feeds don’t translate to link-clicks for monetized blogs…. But I do click over if I want to comment, or to save the post for later reading, or whatever. So good content will always win out.)

please, oh please, oh please DON’T DO IT! I always think it’s an evil way to drive up traffic to their site because they want ad revenue or something. I read all most blogs in google reader and those that aren’t reader-friendly, don’t generally stay on my to-read list for very long