Sphinn - Full RSS Feeds + NO Link Building = Waste Waste WASTE

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Full RSS Feeds + NO Link Building = Waste Waste WASTE

Went Hot: November 13, 2007 - 8:11 am
Posted By: aimClear 601 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.billhartzer.com)
Category: Link Building

Plugged-in bloggers evangelize publishing full feeds. Bill Hartzer (Phreak-of-a-blog-scientist)explains full feed link building benefits (many of us miss) in plain English.

10 Comments

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Comments

from planetc1 601 days ago #

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Nice and simple explanation about why to link internally. I like it!

from jonathan 600 days ago #

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Ironically, I cut my feeds from full to partial and my subscriber count went up AND my reach showed quite a bit of growth.

It's been good for my site to move to partial.

Relevant or not, but still, my 2 cents.

link building is essential for any blog (unless you're already famous)

from iBrian 600 days ago #

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Couple of pointers:

1. Full feeds means that no one needs to visit your website. No traffic = no monetisation.

2. Links from duplicate sources have very little if any link value.

2c.

from TheMadHat 600 days ago #

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Couple of other pointers:

1. Full feeds are more convenient. Some people including myself don't subscribe to partial feeds just because of this fact.

2. No traffic = no monetisation isn't necessarily true. If you're trying to get people to buy your products buy following a link inside your post, then full feeds would bring you more conversions than partial feeds because more people see it.

3. Partial feeds do increase user engagement as comments are not regularly part of the feed.

from bhartzer 600 days ago #

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>> Links from duplicate sources have very little if any link value.
You're right, if it's a duplicate page then it won't appear in Google's index (or at some point it will be devalued or removed from the index), so there won't be a chance that the link will count.

>>Full feeds means that no one needs to visit your website. No traffic = no monetisation.
So, you're saying that since I publish a full feed there's not traffic on my site? I agree that no traffic means no monetization, but if they read one (or a few items) most likely they'll want more.

>> Full feeds means that no one needs to visit your website.
Have you ever heard of 'monetizing' your RSS feed? Feedburner has solutions for that, and so does YPN (Yahoo! Publisher Network).

from iBrian 600 days ago #

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I'm saying I'm a publisher and my main monetisation method is to get visitors to the site to click on ads.

If I provide full feeds, then I provide no reason for subscribers to ever visit my site.

Of course, if someone is monetising their site mainly via aff links in posts on a blog, then sure, that'll probably work fine.

I guess it depends on the business model and targeting.

However, the point remains, that if you provide full feeds, you disincentivise visitors to bother visiting your site, which could certainly be disadvantageous in a number of ways.

2c.

from aimClear 600 days ago #

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I'm glad this post stimulated such a cool thread...very interesting stuff.

from TheMadHat 600 days ago #

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"However, the point remains, that if you provide full feeds, you disincentivise visitors to bother visiting your site, which could certainly be disadvantageous in a number of ways."

My point remains as well. If you provide partial feeds, you disincentivise visitors to bother even subscribing to your feed, which certainly is disadvantageous in all ways. This argument has been going on forever and there isn't a clear answer.

I think Bill was trying to make a point about using internal linking effectively on your blog, and wasn't necessarily arguing full feeds vs partial feeds.

from bhartzer 600 days ago #

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You're right, TheMadHat, I only mentioned full feeds because it's easier to provide internal links in those full feeds. If you must use a partial feed, then make sure that your internal links to your site are towards the top of the article...so those links have a chance to show up on another site.

Personally, thought, I like to offer internal links to other articles/posts at the end of an article, so they will stay on the site. And if those links are in a full feed, well, then guess what? If they're reading the post in a reader or on another site then they'll just have to come on over to your site to see those other articles you're pointing to.

If someone is going to read my stuff in a reader or on another site then more power to them...they're reading my post, right?

from Sebastian 600 days ago #

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I may be an exotic blogger, but probably other folks pick links ("copy link location") from full content feeds too. Also, I usually don't share items from partial feeds (of course GoogleReader pages are nofollowed, but a few bloggers use sidebar widgets that output clean links).