Hey Everyone – – by now you’ve read that the scrapper problem – people stealing entire blog content and posting it as their own – is rampant. I don’t want to truncate my posts (where you have to hit “click here to read more”) because I know that drives everyone crazy. So my posts on the blog will remain full.
BUT, starting tomorrow, I will be shortening my RSS feed, so if you read through a feed, you will get the beginning off the post (the first 400 words) but will have to come check out the blog for the full post. Hopefully I can give you enough description in those first 400 words that you will know if the post is something you want to read more about. 400 is a lot of words – I think we’ll be good to go.
And speaking of ways to read blogs, I can’t say enough about the “NEXT” button – – I’ve had mine for a couple of years and can’t imagine reading blogs without it! Here’s my navigation bar (obviously I like having shortcut buttons!) – my NEXT button is there on the very right:
I hit it and it takes me to a blog that has recently posted – it takes me TO that blog. I love reading blogs on their blog, but I can’t image trying to click through a bunch to see who’s updated. This is the ultimate way to read blogs.
I talked all about my love of the NEXT button and how to get instructions to install it on this post back from a couple of years ago: NEXT BUTTON LOVE.
Anyways, long story short – sorry about the shortened RSS feeds – – I think this was the best solution to the problem. I’m glad I found a way to only shorten the feed and not have to truncate all of my posts, but I know it can still be a hassle for readers. I hope you’ll still continue to read and support Sugar Bee Crafts – you are all AWESOME! (unless you’re one of those blog scrappers – then please, dump me from your feed!!)
Oh relax, you have to protect your property! Seriously have we become so lazy in technology that clicking a button is “too much”. It’s just a shame that theft is causing you to do this. I’m a happy clicker 🙂
I’ll happy click too Mandy. In order to protect myself my question is, how to you set up your RSS feed to truncate?
I got to ask. How do you know when your blog content has be scrapped? I have never really heard of this until now. I knew people were cutting and posting small portions of posts; but, never in entirety. And, how do you protect your blog posts from the cutting and pasting feature? Can you educate us? LOL. 🙂
People do that?!! Scary.
I’ve seen over the weekend that many of my favorite bloggers are truncating and I really dislike having to click over especially when I’m browsing on my phone but I completely understand. It makes me so angry to know that these scrappers are basically plagiarizing! And stealing! So despite my dislike of truncating, I’m still going to click over to read my favorites. It’s not your fault that you have to resort to this so keep up the good work and I like the idea of 400 words =)
That is scary.
I actually get more annoyed when there is not a “read more” button. I read blogs like I browse through a magazine. I read the beginning part and will click if I want to read more. I don’t like scrolling through a bunch of stuff that I don’t want to read.
I also wonder how you would know if you were plagiarized.
so, to check for yourself, go into your RSS feed for your blog, then at the bottom there is a section called “top uncommon uses” – and you can click on “see uncommon uses” – – it’ll show different places that are grabbing your feed. They just sign up for your feed and automatically set it to publish on their own blog.
To change your feed on Blogger (I just learned this – thanks to Kim of 733 – she’s awesome)go to the dashboard of your blog and click “settings” on the left – then under settings on the left is “other” click that – – then on that page there is a place where it says “allow blog feed” and it’s default to “full” but change it to “short” and it’ll only publish the first 400 words of your post.
Crazy times! good luck everyone!
Thanks for explaining this, Mandy. Like a few of your other posters, I’m new enough to blogging to not fully understand how to control our own RSS feeds. Also, thanks for introducing the “next” button. I totally need that. I agree. I prefer reading on people’s actual blogs.
Bonny @ thedomesticatedprincess.blogspot.com
I can’t work out where to find my RSS feeds….. can you tell me where that is please? x
I support you completely! This got me thinking a/b my RSS feed… on my way to check it out. Thanks!
Thanks for your help Mandy! I went through and checked my settings on my blog and on my feedburner!
I will still read 🙂 but I’m fairly new to this….so what does a shortened feed do to help that problem? (and oh my goodness I didn’t even know people would do such a thing)! But anyhow thanks for your help….
Ugh! I really hate clicking to read the rest, but I totally understand your dilemma (what is wrong with people!). I will continue to read!
I only got the first 50 words or so . . . . not even a picture. At least if you truncate you can control where it breaks off and have a photo included before it breaks. . . . . just something to think about.
I’m sorry your content was being stolen. 🙁
And thanks for telling us about this. I could see
uncommon uses in feedburner but none of them looked
like reblogging, just feeds, so I don’t know, but
will be keeping an eye on it.
I’ve been seeing these posts all over… Shame shame.
So that’s what happened!! I was so confused about why I didn’t see anything really in the email! 😛 People never cease to amaze me.