A change in my RSS feeds

If you’re reading this blog by feeds, you will probably notice a change. I’ve changed from “full feed” to “summary.”

I just want to make it a little more difficult for content scrapers to get my full content. I’m going to stop giving it away. If they want to steal my content, some of them will have to come to the blog to get it.

I’m not so vain that I think I have a lot of people scraping my content…, yet. However, I do want to grow my blog and I don’t want my content diluted by having it duplicated elsewhere on the internet.

I made this decision after reading Darren Rowse’s The Age Old Debate – Excerpts of Full Posts in RSS Feeds.

I hate it when people steal my content or the content of others.  It’s copyright infringement and plagiarism.

4 Responses to “ A change in my RSS feeds ”

1. 1 Steve Harrelson Says:
   August 25th, 2007 at 11:39 am Nice blog. I’m considering doing the same to mine to keep my traffic number up. It took me a few minutes to decide whether you were in Russellville or Arkadelphia, since Exit 78 on I-30 is just six miles from Lake DeGray. I knew those mountains in your pic were a little more steep and rugged than the ones in Clark County, though.

   Steve

2. 2 Rose Says:
   August 26th, 2007 at 12:02 am Mike wise move. I have mine set on short too.
3. 3 Jonathan Bailey Says:
   August 26th, 2007 at 10:20 pm One point to consider though. Even though this may thwart most RSS scrapers out there right now, the next generation of scrapers will likely have the ability to scrape from the site itself, much like what Technorati does for its search engines.

   The technology exists, it just hasn’t been applied yet to your traditional RSS scraper. It’s only a matter of time though.

   Just something to weigh, this might not be a long-term solution.

4. Mike Goad Says:
   August 26th, 2007 at 10:50 pm Steve – that’s correct; it is the Exit78 on I40, Thanks for stopping by the blog

   Rose – thanks; time may tell if it’s smart or not

   Jonathan – thanks for commenting. It’s unfortunate that we have to even consider “long-term” solutions for unethical use of the internet.

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011