Yesterday my August Mom friend LSM and I were of like mind. I had just finished going through my Google Reader feed at lunch and grumbled in my head about some sites that only have partial feeds when viewed through the Reader. Meaning that in order to read the whole post, I would *have* to (oh my gawd), take All That Time to click through into their blog directly (we are talking one click here – horrors!) to read the whole thing. While I was bitching in my own mind, LSM was kind enough to post about it. A friendly little “hey, I have a question” post which asked folks how they read, if HER posts came across in full (they do) and how does one control that function anyway? Her first commenter confirmed that hers were fine and then ever so kindly gave step by step instructions to word press bloggers on how to check your settings for that and fix it.
Here is the comment I left at her place:
Same as above and it REALLY bothers me when others blogs only show a partial feed!! Funny because I am reading on my lunch right now and two of them came up with the partials and…I didn’t click through because I don’t have the time and I wondered if those blog owners even know?
Now, did I check my own blog settings before saying that? Of course not!!
On my way to my work out last night, this email from LSM buzzes me on my phone:
Hey, thanks for the comment on my post today. I thought you might want to know that your blog entries just show up as excerpts on Google reader. 🙂 I’d love it if you changed it, so I can more effectively waste time at work!
Oooof!! Chomp chomp chomp. Boy does my foot need salt!
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And yes, I changed my settings! I don’t know how to do it in Blogger or any other host, but on WordPress it is Dashboard->Settings->Reading->Full Text (which is a box you have to click. )
Trees & Flowers & Birds! 
Heh, isn’t that the way it usually works?
In Blogger, it’s Dashboard → Settings → Site Feed, then set “Allow Blog Feeds” to Full.
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LOL. I usually check mine from time to time because sometimes when WP does site maintenance things go wonky and it goes back to the default (showing only a snippet). Thanks for reminding me that I haven’t checked mine in a while! Off to do that now!
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LOL!! Yes, yours was always one that I had to click through to, and when I was just doing a quick Google reader look-see I often wouldn’t bother to do that. But I had no idea about the settings either. I did check mine and it looks OK, but that is either just lucky or the default because I haven’t messed with those settings at all. Glad you are now a “full read” 🙂
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So… how do you know you’ve had readers if they don’t click to read your excerpts? I’m a little confused about why a blogger would want “full read”. And I have no idea what mine is even set to but have no idea what I’d even want it set to either as I find this all soooo confusing. (Can you tell I don’t use a reader?)
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Your stats count clicks in from Readers so even if they can read the full post through there, you still see the click.
Readers are critical for someone like me who is following a lot of sites, but can only read in bursts of time here and there. It’s perfect because I know exactly which ones have new posts so I only go to those vs clicking through everything.
Yours is set to partial read.
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Yay, full feeds! Thanks!!
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