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ErieBlogs changing from full to partial feeds
Last week, I changed the RSS feed at ErieBlogs.com from full entries to partial entries. I've received a few emails about it so I thought I'd quickly comment on it.
The main reason I made the change was because literally a ton of spam sites were scraping our content, especially since we posted full posts, and putting their AdSense ads around it. I have several ErieBlogs.com vanity searches setup and was seeing our content come up every single day. They were capitalizing on the work that Dennis and the rest of us do on that site every day, and that isn't fair. I can understand why the spammers would love our feed - it was full of content and was updated every single day.
Since the change, I've seen a decline in splogs scraping our content. I've also noticed an interesting trend - our traffic is up. When our traffic is up, the traffic we send to other blogs is up as well, so in the end everyone wins.
Posted by Mike at January 24, 2008 7:29 AM | Add to del.icio.usThink spammers can't scrape your site sans RSS feed?
I would weigh the "cost" associated with spammers stealing your content with the "cost" associated to the reduced ease of access for a majority of your subscribers.
How many people subscribe via RSS? Perhaps it's a insignificant number in comparison to your traffic directly on the site but if it is significant you might want to rethink your efforts.
Posted by: Nick at January 24, 2008 10:49 AMThey can scrape the site using a regular page scraper, but RSS makes it much easier. In fact, if you poke around the web you can buy pre-made sites that scrape RSS feeds automatically and re-use the content. My Yahoo is the tool people use the most to subscribe to the site, and they just show a headline anyway (I know - I have it added in My Yahoo).
Visiting the site remains, by far, the #1 way people get to the site. RSS is a very small percentage of those users (
Posted by: Mike at January 24, 2008 11:27 AMWhen our traffic is up, the traffic we send to other blogs is up as well, so in the end everyone wins.
Unless you mean "the traffic we send to other blogs can be seen as coming from us," then it's not any different whether the people clicking are doing so via feed reader or from your page. You just see it when they're forced to come to your page first.
Posted by: jer at January 24, 2008 8:27 PMThe point isn't to say "Look how great we are!"
Since the beginning of the ErieBlogs.com site, the goal has been to build a community of Erie people and bloggers. We get more traffic then a lot of local blogs, and I'm glad we can send that to the local sites. If that happens because a reader came to our site through our feed, then finds a local blog that interests them, to me that's a win.
Posted by: Mike at January 25, 2008 8:32 AMMike, I'm sorry... but I HATE the partial feeds.
HATE IT.
I understand your reasoning but could you put a bit more content in the partial feed? Like at least half or 3/4 of a post?
C'mon make your subscribers happy ;) Traffic hits is one thing but loyality will keep the site going.
Posted by: Jenson at January 27, 2008 8:39 PM
