Should I Go Full Monty?
Filed in Design Matters (Blogging 301), Morning Must Read
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Even prior to BFTM’s nifty, new site design (thanks to my beloved pals at Apothegm), I’d been posting only entry excerpts on the front page of this site.
As this Morning’s Must Read explains, there’s a good argument in favor of excerpts: avoiding search engine penalties for duplicate content. (There are plenty of other boring design reasons to use excerpts, too.)
Now, I don’t think using excerpts would be appropriate on every kind of blog — I seldom use them at my other sites, for instance. But the entries here tend to be long, text-heavy things, so I’ve hoped that using excerpts would prevent “information overload” when scanning the front page. But this blog is about what works for you, too.
So what do you think?
Should I go full monty with entries, or do excerpts work just fine?
This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 6:31 am and is filed under Design Matters (Blogging 301), Morning Must Read. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Tagged in: blog design | excerpts
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Top Commenters
I don’t mind the excerpts at all. In fact, it makes things look cleaner. If people are too lazy to click on the “read more” link, then they don’t need to be blogging for the money;)
Lori’s last blog post..Doing Well with Other Niches
Go with full feed. It allows me to not have the frustration of clicking through to all sites to read what they have to offer. Isn’t a blog about the reader, after all?
As far as being “too lazy to click”, as some people might think, it’s more a question of being too busy to bother with blogs that withhold their texts and make me jump through their hoops to get to what *they* want *me* to read.
Check out the A-listers. Not one of them uses excerpts and it’s all full feed. Only the small blogs who hoard what they have to say go for excerpts, in my opinion.
Thanks for asking, and it was nice to read the full post on my reader. Plus, you got me to click through to drop a comment here - something I would not have done with an excerpt. I usually scan the title, read the first two sentences and breeze on by.
Convinced?
Is there a way to do a full feed on the RSS and excerpts on the actual page? That’d be the best of both worlds, IMO.
I much prefer the excerpts if I’m reading on the page itself. If your writing is good enough (and I believe yours is), then readers will make the jump.
jae’s last blog post..At a loss
Nice layout & design, K! IMO — excerpts are just fine.
david’s last blog post..Speed Dating
@ Jae - Yes, there’s a plugin for WP blogs (if that’s what this one is; I believe so…)called Full Text feed. You can find it here: Full Text Feed plugin. Works like a charm.
James Chartrand - Web Content Writer Tips’s last blog post..Ground: The Way Of Writing - Part 2 of 6
It should be doing it now. I’ve had the plugin that James recommended installed for a while. I see full feeds in my reader, at least.
Sweet! Thanks for the tip James.
jae’s last blog post..And so it begins
@ Kate - I assume you’re the blog owner (sorry, I’m new here!), and if so, yep, the full post showed up today. Haven’t checked back posts, but if they’re full feed, then I’m a happy, happy boy
@ Jae - You’re very welcome!
James Chartrand - Web Content Writer Tips’s last blog post..Ground: The Way Of Writing - Part 2 of 6
Hmmm… speaking of plugins, after seeing how frustrating it is to start comments with “@whomever”, I’m testing out Yet Another Threaded Comments Plug-in.
Not sure if I’ll keep this one or not since it doesn’t play nicely with the “php comments_popup_link” this theme uses.
Let’s see if I can help you test your plugin… Test.
James Chartrand - Web Content Writer Tips’s last blog post..Ground: The Way Of Writing - Part 2 of 6
Ignore me, I’m testing my reply to your reply.
If you’ve got a long article (and many of these are) use excerpts. But don’t make me click through for just one last paragraph. I’m sure you wouldn’t, but some do.
James, yep, that’s me. Sorry I didn’t wave earlier but my hand was busy ferrying copious amounts of coffee down my gullet.
Donna, I know what you mean. The ones that really get me are folks who use the “More” button just to hide a one-liner.
Um… as I’ve done in the past.
And promise I will never, ever do again.
Hm. From a user perspective, I can already see people looking at the dropdown below the comment post and go “WHA? What am I supposed to choose? Huh? What is this?” Hmmm… back to the drawing board, Kate?
James Chartrand - Web Content Writer Tips’s last blog post..Ground: The Way Of Writing - Part 2 of 6
Well, now, Brian’s Threaded Comments is a bit more interesting. It might be a bit confusing still, though.
What do you think?
I think it would help if there was more of a difference in color.
Lori’s last blog post..My Top 5 Picks from Daily Blog Tips Group Writing Project
Which colors, Lori? I’m more than happy to change things to improve readability, if you’ll tell me what you’d like to see.
Contrast between links and text? Between nested comments? Let me know. I’m here to help, to please, and to have fun with y’all!
I prefer full articles. What you do it okay with a good chunk on the front page. I hate when it’s a sentence or two.
Tina Kubala’s last blog post..Economic Growth in Rural Missouri