To feed or not to feed…

It’s a debate nobody will ever win. Should you use full text feeds or only summary feeds? How about both?

There are good points to be argued on both sides, but it really depends on what type of site you’re running. For the longest time I’ve used summary feeds for all of my sites, but I’ve been persuaded to change. I just finished changing 4 of the 5 NICKED Up blogs to use full text feeds. The only one I didn’t change was Poker Chip Tricks and that’s because any announcements are really short posts in the first place. I definitely don’t want any of the trick tutorials to be available in a full text feed.

In my new opinion I think you’re losing more readers by publishing summaries in your feeds. If your site is out to make money the people who subscribe aren’t the ones you are going to be clicking your ads in the first place. Most of your money making comes from search engine referrals. Most sites should use full text feeds or give the subscriber the option to choose between full or summary feeds.