Excerpts or full posts?

[ses5909]

On my blog, I used to show excerpts instead of real posts..the idea was that in my feeds, i would get people to come to my blog and potentially comment rather than reading it all in the RSS feed.

But I read that some people get annoyed when they can't read the full entry in their readers. So now, I'm trying it with the full post.

What do you do?

[HAWK]

I do the full post. Nothing to do with feeds though, I just like how it looks.

[Golgotha]

I use full post in feeds, because it's just rude not to ;)

Sara, be sure to use this plugin or they may not be getting full feeds
http://cavemonkey50.com/code/full-feed/

[LiquidReflex]

Definitely full posts. If I'm reading a post I want to be able to read the entire post at once, not click to read more after I get to a certain point. I understand that blogs aren't quite like e-commerce websites or other content websites where minimum clicks are key ... but unless it's a very long post that would require a couple pages, the extra click is unnecessary IMO.

[ses5909]

hmmm.. guess I was wrong about getting people to not read it in their feeds but come to my site instead.

[Jeremy]

Man, nothing irritates me more than excerpts, either in feeds or on the actual site :mad:

[BPartch]

I use excerpts for both feeds and the index, archive pages of my site(s) well some of them.

1. for how it looks
2. to get people to visit from the feeds
3. to help combat duplicate content.

[doorlight]

I use excerpts when my entry is too long, i was just concerned on visitors who have dial-up connections.

[t(-.-t)]

Excerpts on the front page if the post would be more than 1 printed page, full text feeds.

I'm not a big fan of excerpted feeds (not that I read many feeds anyway), but what I hate more is seeing 10+ novel-length entries all crammed into the front page. If that's the case, give me a 2-3 paragraph teaser and I'll click on to the full article if I really like what I see.

[Dan Schulz]

I'm actually tinkering with a blend of the two. Go with a full post on the index page, but use the overflow property to set a vertical scrollbar (that's overflow: auto; for those who aren't really into CSS the way I am, or are just learning) and a height. That way the visitor can read the full post, but doesn't have to scroll down just to get to the next section block.

[Jelena]

Full posts when I have few paragraphs. If it's something longer, sorry, but excerpt only.

[adalante]

I really prefer to post FULL but recently i had to post exceprts because they were/are a flurry of splogs stealing my content..all 100% of it, by using the <more> tag in Wordpress it forced the readers/visitors of this splogs to comeback to my blog.

[snookca]

full feeds. splogs haven't been much of an issue, thankfully. I went with excerpts briefly but it didn't make a difference with traffic (at least, not that I could notice) and probably just annoyed people.

[Mark]

I use full post. Some readers get upset if they are forced to click all the way through just to be able to read the entire article.

You need to keep your readers in mind.

[elfreakz]

i use full post, unless it is very long then i will just use <more>

ya sometimes readers dont really like to click here and there and wait for it to load.

[ses5909]

I saw this interesting post on why TO use the excerpt:

http://blogosquare.com/2007/06/20/things-you-should-know-when-using-post-excerpt/


1. Better SEO (less chance of duplicate content)
2. To boost speed (the page can save on how much it has to load)
3. To increase page views


I'm still not sure which is the best way and I can see benefits to doing both.

[Emma]

Full posts, all the way. Sometimes I like to look through the content before I click over to the site. It saves time. I still visit sites I really like or if I want to comment. You already have your subscribers. It's the first time visitors you want to stick.

[deronsizemore]

I use both excerpts and full articles on my index page. Depends on how long the article is. I figure give readers the first paragraph or so and if they're interested, they can "continue reading." If they are not interested, they will be able to quickly see the next title or two where as if I have nothing but full articles on the index page and they don't like one of the articles, they may never scroll down enough to see the next titles and you never know, might be something that catches their eye there. I don't mind excerpts at all on the actual site, but I really hate excerpts in the feed reader. If I like the article in the feed reader, I'll usually navigate to the site anyway to comment.

[goldfries]

i use excerpts. my readers are using browser, not RSS readers. :)

[SarahG]

I use full posts in RSS. The few feeds I do keep that use exerpts are often just skimmed over. I'll visit the blog if the post really catches my eye but otherwise I won't bother. Whereas if the full post was there I'd still read the whole post. Plus if you're using a PDA or telephone to read feeds (when stuck on the train), full feeds can be downloaded before you leave via wireless say, but excerpts mean you need to pay to get the rest of the content. I unsubscribed to a lot of feeds because of that.

On my sites I display the full post on the front page and just list the titles of each post on the category page. However on my accumulated page (3 blogs displaying as one) I show excerpts, theoretically for spiders and prevention of dupe content, but you can switch it to full posts if you want.