How to ensure a full RSS feed of your blog in Reader?

If you are blogging, you must be aware of RSS. (If not read this). I have a list of my favorite blogs in my RSS reader and I read them regularly. However, it is a little annoying to see that many bloggers (probably unknowingly) allow only partial feed of their blog post in RSS reader. Though their main intention is to prompt the reader to actually visit their blogs (for seeing advertisement or whatever reason), it acts as a big turn off.

Take my case itself. Owing to lack of time, it is not possible for me to visit each of my favorite blogs separately in my browser. I prefer to read them in my reader so that I can go through them quickly and grasp all the relevant posts.

Man do I read them? No. I don’t read any post from start to finish unless of course it has some exceptionally unique content. I just scan most of the posts quickly to have a general idea of what is being written in these blogs.

So when I came across a post which is incomplete owing to partial feed, I prefer to ignore /pend it for future reading (i.e. for reading in spare time). And to tell you the truth I seldom or never have spare time.

The end result: I leave all the incomplete post.

Do you know that many of us blogger don’t know that the WordPress truncates your feed’s content anywhere you insert a <!––more––> tag ? This is particularly true for those bloggers who are still using Wordpress 2.1 and have not upgraded their blog. So all of your RSS subscribers who read your blog in their RSS reader (like me) will only see a partial post and, in order to read your post completely, they will have to actually visit your blog in their browser.

Well many loyal readers will come to your blog. But if some of them are like me (hard pressed for time), they will simply postpone reading your post till they complete other posts. Simple.

In fact this blog was also a victim of this partial feed. When I saw my blog’s feed in the RSS reader, I realized that all my posts where I used the <!––more––> tag, had been truncated and were only partially visible in the RSS reader. It was a big embarrassment to find that my own blog was a victim of this partial feed syndrome.

So what is the solution? A very simple one really.

Upgrade your Wordpress blog. It is said that the Wordpress 2.5 will rectify this ‘more’ tag error and allow full feed. But it appears that Wordpress 2.5 is yet to be released.(version 2.3.3 is the latest version till date). So here is the another solution which I am using myself on this blog.

Just install ‘Full Text Feed‘ plugin in your blog. Activating this plugin will ensure that your blog will display it’s full RSS feed in the RSS reader even if you have used the <!––more––> tag. I have become a huge fan of this plugin. Thanks a lot to Ronald Heft, Jr. of Cavemonkey50.com who developed this great plugin.

This plugin is a must have plugin.

Now open your RSS Reader and check whether your blog is displaying full RSS feed or not. If yes, great! If not, please understand that this is costing you visitors. Go and install the ‘Full Text Feed’ plugin. It will be a great help to your loyal readers J

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