Google Widgets and Full RSS Feeds
January 12th, 2007 by Michael Gray in Blogs, SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
I totally admit the publishing full feeds is probably a large contributor as to why I’m being scrapped to death. Thankfully I’m sitting on a fairly authoritative and trustworthy domain that helps Google decide I’m really the owner of the content. However if there’s anything we can learn from the MyBlogLog Purchase it’s that widgets are going to grow in importance in 2007
I really wasn’t up to speed on widgets however when I saw Lawrence Coburn speak about them at Pubcon I had one of those Zen moments of clarity. Just like Rand I saw the pure link building potential something like that could be used for.
Over on Marketing Pilgrim Andy has integrated the Google reader widget to let you know what he thinks is hot or interesting. Basically using the Google reader he “flags” items as “share” and they get published in the widget. Since I’m back to using the Google reader it’s a widget I’m also going to try it when I launch my new layout in a few weeks (subtle segue eh?).
So what does all of this have to do with full feeds? Well when I read in the reader if it’s a partial feed I CTRL+{click} to open it in a new tab. I then space bar down to the next feed. If it’s a full feed I read it in the reader when I get to the end the “share” button is right there. Going through a giganormous amounts of feeds per day it’s not uncommon for me to have a dozen or more tabs open. Your post is going to have to be exceptional for me to go back through the list and “share” you. Whereas you would only have to be good for me to do it if I was in the reader proper.
Yeah Gray so what you’re only one person and Google is only one reader so why should I care about making your life easier? Well I’m not the only one using the Google reader, lots of folks are, and when you combine it with Greasemonkey and a Gmail integration script, you get a powerful combination of feeds an email in one ajaxified love fest. I think more and more widgets are going to take advantage of feeds, bookmarks and the like in 2007, and if you can make it quick and easy for people to share your link they are more likely to do it. Let me be a little clearer, IF IT’S EASIER AND THERE’S LESS FRICTION BETWEEN YOUR FULL FEED AND THE DESIRED ACTION THAN THE NEXT GUY WHO HAS A PARTIAL FEED WHO DO YOU THINK IS MORE LIKELY TO GET SHARED? Got it, good.
It’s just like the social bookmarking buttons, sure some people will go to the trouble to submit, bookmark, vote and digg it anyway, but the easier you make it the more mileage you’ll get out of it.
Sphere It
January 12th, 2007 at 5:40 am
I also appreciate the full feed. I sift through several hours of blog posts a day. Unless the title and intro text Seriously grab me, that’s usually all I’m going to read. For me… The shorter the intro text, the less likely I’ll visit, comment or otherwise interact with the blog.
January 12th, 2007 at 6:52 am
I publish full feeds, but make sure there’s a big fat rooted url in it going back to the original page. Usually that means the scraper will include the URL pointing back to the original. It helps, it definitely helps
Love you for the full feed, dude! I hate clicking through
January 12th, 2007 at 7:12 am
I think you mean widgets are going to be big in 2007 not 2006
January 12th, 2007 at 9:16 am
good catch stu, fixed it, thanks.
January 12th, 2007 at 10:34 am
“Thankfully I’m sitting on a fairly authoritative and trustworthy domain that helps Google decide I’m really the owner of the content.”
And what if you aren’t sitting on an authority domain? Just hope and keep your fingers crossed somebody with a bit of authority doesn’t scrape your feed?
“I totally admit the publishing full feeds is probably a large contributor as to why I’m being scrapped to death.”
What’s your advice for the little guys?
January 12th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Work your ass off to get authoritative trust. Go around make comments that add value, publish stuff, point it out to others who are “outlink friendly”. Publish stuff on a group blog to get noticed and get attention. Do something crazy/remarkable to get noticed and get linked, go the distance. Good content with out some shameless self promotion is like sitting home hoping the prom queen comes by and asks you to dance. You want something gotta go after it.
January 12th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I wouldn’t put up a full feed when a domain first launches. After 6 months, when the domain is in better shape, then make it full.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Thanks for the enthusiastic advice, and yes I’ve spent my fare share of waiting on the prom queen to show up, however more specifically I was asking what the little guy should do “in the meantime” if you will. If you aren’t an Authority blog, yet, do you publish the full feed? Knowing scraping happens frequently with full feeds?
January 12th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
I’d still publish full feeds, however I’d use the scrapers to my advantage making sure I linked back to myself in the first 200 words of every post as often as possible without it looking stoopid (linking back the full absolute URL).
Set up technorati vanity search to monitor and only go after the most egregious offenders
January 12th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Maybe I’ll add a short copyright notice first with a link or two back and remain conscious to link more to myself.
Thanks for the advice.
January 12th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Just make sure it’s inside oof the XML tag where the body is
January 12th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
“Just make sure it’s inside oof the XML tag where the body is”
Sure thing. It might be nice to randomize it’s placement, but I’m not sure I’m that concerned.
I also thought i could have a link (within the body) at the end of the post which could go back to the comments and say if there were any comments yet. Could be useful and offer another chance to link back.
January 13th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
The only problem with putting ’self-updating content’ (I just made that term up ;)) in a post in a feed is that then the post will be marked as ‘updated’ for your readers, when nothing interesting has changed.
I think you would actually slowly reduce your readership, as you pissed them off
January 14th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Lea the self updating part is on page not in the feed. You could subscribe to it but then like you said you get constant updates.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Oh! I thought Mark meant he would put it in the feed
Hmmm… not sure there is a point putting it on the page?