This post will serve as an official notice to all who are subscribed to my blog, either through an RSS Reader or by Email.

It is with great regret and sadness that I have changed the RSS feed to only show a summary, or excerpt, of posts rather than the entire post content. This means that rather than being able to view and read a new blog post from your favorite RSS Reader or by email, you will now have to actually come here to the blog to read new posts in their entirety.

Why Have I Done This?

Honestly, this decision was not made lightly. If you’ve been subscribed for more than a few weeks, you will know that all posts were shown in their entirety on the feed. I originally started this blog that way, and I truly wanted to keep it that way.

Sadly, it had gotten to a point where I could no longer jeopardize my blog and its content by keeping the feed as it was, so I was left with no choice but to change it.

You see, out there in the great distance of the internet, there lies a few dishonest, unethical people who like to outright steal legitimate blogger’s RSS feeds and use the content as their own on their blogs. Through plug-ins or other methods, the content from the feed can be published to a WordPress blog just as a normal blog post.

Their blogs, if you even want to call them that, are basically the result of multiple RSS feeds being scraped for content. These scraper/farming blogs are completely worthless and usually never rank in search engines.

The problem, however, is that my blog posts are showing up on sites like this, sometimes instantly after I publish a new post. This bugs me, alot.

I have links pointing to my site and blog that I DO NOT want on those kinds of sites. If a search engine like Google were to find my scraped content and index it, I can only imagine the consequences. Perhaps nothing bad will happen and Google would deem those sites useless like everybody else does, but really, why chance it? I can’t take the risk.

I realize this is a huge if, but I do not want to jeopardize my blog and everything I’ve worked so hard on to be penalized based on the actions of an unscrupulous few.

What This Means for You

I fully realize the inconvenience this puts on all of you, and I sincerely apologize. Believe me, I would prefer to keep the full content shown in the RSS feed. As a reader of many other blogs in the industry, I prefer to read entire posts through email.

I guess what I’m saying is, I understand the hassle. Really, I do.

From now on, if you want to read the entire post with all content included, you’ll be required to visit the actual post page. A link is included to make this step convenient for you, however.

There’s a slight chance I could change it back to showing full posts. More on this later.

Previous Steps I’ve Taken to Avoid This

Implementing an RSS Footer

If you notice on the feed, I have a footer in place that links to the home page, the blog’s home page, and the page where the specific post is located. I implemented this RSS Footer a long while back to serve a few purposes.

• Provide links to you for quicker access to my site and blog.
• “Thank” you for being a reader. I really do appreciate the support.
• If someone did steal my feed and use my content as their own, the footer would be included, making it obvious that my content was stolen.

Blocking Specific IP Addresses

A neat little tool I get with my web hosting is an IP Blocker. It comes handy when I need to block certain people for spamming or other mischief, based on their IP address. This can also be done through your .htaccess file if you don’t have an IP Blocker available.

Since the beginning, I have blocked the IP addresses of those I’ve known to rip my RSS feed and blatantly steal my content and use it as their own. This is usually done when I see that it becomes a habitual act. Comments in the form of Trackbacks from the offending sites show up in the comments waiting to be moderated, so if I see multiple Trackbacks originating from the same site, I block them so they can no longer pull my feed and steal my content.

What Now?

What will happen now is that whenever a scraper/farming blog does steal my content using the RSS feed, they will only get a short summary of the post, along with the RSS Footer attached.

My goal in doing this is that it will deter offenders (I’m not holding my breath), and that it will also keep my content in its entirety along with any links off of these types of sites (This I know is true).

Now that this is said and done, I want you to chime in and let me know what you think. I would appreciate any feedback or experience you can provide in how to deal with this issue, and if you can answer any or all of the questions below, I would greatly appreciate the help and support.

1. Will this have an impact on whether or not you read my blog? Be honest, please!

2. Do you agree with my decision based on the circumstances I presented, or do you feel I’m being too irrational?

3. Could you provide any cold-hard evidence to suggest that this isn’t necessary and that it is ‘OK’ to keep full posts in the feed?

I’m really curious to see who has an answer to that last question. Seriously, if you can provide evidence to show that this move isn’t necessary and that I’m just being silly about this whole thing, I’m all for changing the feed back to showing full posts.

Okay, let me know below in the comments, and thanks again for being a reader!

What’s an RSS feed, you ask? Every blog has one. Perhaps you’re even subscribed to a couple, or a lot of them.

RSS feeds, usually recognizable by that little orange button found on blogs (or perhaps a different color), allow people to subscribe to a blog’s content feed. Whenever new content is added to that blog, the subscriber is notified by either their favorite RSS reader or by email, depending on their subscription preferences.

As a blog owner, it’s important that you utilize your blog’s RSS feed to it’s fullest potential.

How do you do this?

Here are several ways you can get exposure to your feed.

1. Share Your RSS Feed with the World

There are many ways to go about doing this. The easiest, in my opinion, is to submit your feed to RSS feed directories. This can be done by hand, but if you can use an automated submission tool, then all the better. I prefer to make life as easy as possible, so when I got my niche site up and running, I chose to go the automated route. Check out the link above. My good friend JR talks about a free automated tool to get your RSS feed out there. Definitely worth checking out.

This method is also great for getting some backlinks to your blog and posts. And, if your site hasn’t been indexed by the search engines yet because it’s new, this will help with that.

2. Invite Your Readers to Subscribe to Your RSS Feed

This almost seems like common sense, but you’d be surprised at how many bloggers don’t do this. Most of this can be automated as well, or should I say, implemented on your blog so that you don’t have to manually invite your readers on a post-per-post basis. Again, trying to make life as easy as possible is the goal here.

To start with, there’s a cool WordPress Plug-in called What Would Seth Godin Do, which basically displays a custom welcome message to first-time visitors and also to return visitors (up to 3 times). You can customize this message to say whatever you want. The default message is pretty good already, but I took the opportunity to customize it a little bit more to make it seem a little more personal. Here’s what it looks like…

This message will appear at the end of your recent blog post.

This is just the beginning, though. Of course, you should be displaying a nice big RSS icon somewhere towards the top-right of your blog, similar to this…

And, if you want to go maybe a tad overboard as I did, you can use your sidebar to showcase your feed and make it a little more inviting to people…

I particularly make it obvious that people can subscribe via an RSS reader or by email. I personally prefer subscribing to blogs by email, so I imagine there are others who do as well. But, you also have people who like using RSS readers, so you want to make sure you provide both options.

3. Integrate Your RSS Feed with Feedburner

Feedburner, owned by Google, easily integrates with your existing blog’s feed to provide advanced tools and stats. One feature I feel is a must, and something I previously mentioned, is that you have the ability to offer readers a way to subscribe to your feed via email.

Other features include customized email subscription options, so you can determine how the emails will look to your readers, including with what the title of the email will be.

You have advanced stats available that will who you how many people are subscribed to your feed, and you even have the option of emailing your entire email subscriber base. Consider this targeted email marketing at its finest.

One very nice feature is the ability to see how your blog’s RSS feed is being used. This is helpful to find out if certain people are pulling your feed to serve content on their own blogs. Obviously, this can potentially be a problem, as some people may actually be stealing your content.

RSS Footer WordPress Plug-In

One way to combat this problem is by using a neat plug-in called RSS Footer. This allows you to add customized HTML code that will show up at the end of your blog posts in your RSS feed. When someone is reading a post via email, RSS reader, or on someone else’s site who has pulled your feed, they will see this added text at the end of the posts.

What I do is link back to the original post, link to the blog’s home page, and I also link to my site’s home page. That’s three different backlinks I’m getting whenever someone publishes my feed on their site. This also makes it known to anyone reading that the content is from a different site.

How Are You Utilizing Your Blog’s RSS Feed?

Are you using any of the strategies I mentioned to best utilize your RSS feed? Are you doing anything different that I haven’t mentioned?

Have any questions about anything I mentioned? Perhaps something doesn’t make sense, or you want me to elaborate further?

Let me know by leaving a comment below…

I hope October treated you all well (and no pun intended there). October had it’s up and downs for me. The up being I had the opportunity to spend four days in Myrtle Beach, S.C. As you can tell by the picture (playin’ some mini golf) the weather was absolutely beautiful down there. I couldn’t have asked for nicer weather.

Did you do anything exciting this past month? I’d love to hear about it! So, let me know in the comments section!

Let’s take a look at last month’s blog posts that you may have missed

October’s Blog Posts on ReplaceYourSalary.com

It’s All About Traffic and Knowing How to Get It!

Q&A: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

3 Home Based Business Ideas for Senior Citizens

Site Build It Review – Don’t Build a Website Before You Read This

Business in a Box – The Entrepreneur in You

Are You Marketing Your Blog on Facebook?

Bad Economy – Good Jobs?

Other Blog Posts from Around the Web

Now, if you recall I mentioned I’d be adding a new addition to the monthly roundups. The time has come, and I’m pleased to announce the blog posts that I’ve found written by fellow bloggers to be of value and inspiration to me. Check them out, and I hope you’ll feel the same way.

Rich from RichesCorner.com talks about the importance of keeping track of your blog and offers some tracking solutions that blog owners can utilize to do just that. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re not keeping track of your blog.

Tia from BizChickBlogs.com talks about protecting your RSS feed and suggests a really cool plug-in to do so. In fact, I now use this plug-in for my RSS feed as it allows you to add custom HTML to the end of your feed. You can add a copyright notice, links, pictures and whatever else you want to say to your readers.

Andrew from WeBuildYourBlog.com talks about time management and the realities of working from home and being your own boss. This is a must read if you work from home.

Ken from The Web Mechanic provides 10 WordPress security tips to keep your WordPress blog safe and secure from unwanted intruders. If you’re not taking all the necessary precautions to protect your blog, you’re leaving it open to hackers that could reek havoc on all your hard work. Don’t let that happen!

Onibalusi from YoungPrePro.com talks about facing criticism as a blogger. It doesn’t matter what you do in life, there will always be people who get satisfaction from putting you down and ridiculing you. It’s important to understand how to deal with people like this and also understand why they act this way. This post explains it all and is a must read.

That does it for last’s month’s roundup. I encourage you to not only read through my posts but also take extra time to read through these other blogger’s posts. They all do an excellent job with their blogs, and it’s been a pleasure following them. I hope you see the value that they provide just as I do.

Every blog owner dreams of having thousands of readers. In fact, I’m one of them. As of right now I only have 27 subscribers to my RSS Feed. I would love to get that number up. But regardless, that tells me I have 27 people who are interested in my blog and what I have to say. Ignoring them would be a disservice to not only them but also myself.

I’ve ran across some popular blogs that have literally 1,000′s of readers. These types of blogs receive many comments to their posts, and some are specific questions regarding what the posts were about.

What I’ve noticed is that some of these blog owners are completely ignoring the readers by not answering the readers’ questions and responding to the comments. For the life of me I can’t understand why.

In my case, I blog because I want to help people and provide valuable information. If someone has a question, I would be doing a disservice by not acknowledging the reader and answering the question. It just wouldn’t make sense.

But this is what I’m seeing on other blogs. If these blog owners truly want to help people, then why are they completely ignoring their readers?

It’s one thing to have great content that brings in readers and lots of comments, but if you’re not paying attention to your readers then what’s the point? Your readers could just go elsewhere to find the information they’re looking for.

I’m saying this from experience. It takes a lot of guts to post a comment on a respected blog for the first time. If I’m going to take the time to comment and make it meaningful, the least the blog owner can do is acknowledge me.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way. Personally, I’ll probably leave the blog never to return.

I would much rather keep my blog readers coming back time and time again. And, I want my readers to feel comfortable and feel free to comment. If they have a question, I’m going to answer it. I won’t leave them hanging.

So if you’re reading this and have a habit of ignoring your blog readers, just remember, you could lose them and potentially lose some money in the long-run.

If you’re a reader of this blog and have yet to comment, now’s the time. I want to hear your thoughts on the issue.

Oh, and THANKS for being a valued reader of this blog! I truly appreciate it!