In my recent call for questions from readers Barry asked:
“What makes you unsubscribe from a blog’s RSS feed?”
It’s a good question and one worthy of some discussion as an ‘Open Mic’ discussion. Perhaps the result will be that we’ll all learn a thing or two NOT to do in our blogging.
So what makes you unsubscribe from a blog’s RSS feed? What makes you ‘un-bookmark it’ or stop visiting via some other method?
Is it to do with the style of blogging, the frequency of posting, the feed itself (whether it be full/partial feed, whether they include other links, ads etc), the topic, the attitude of the blogger or some other factor?
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For me it’s definitely two things:
1. When the blogger doesn’t post for a very long time – I feel like the site is ‘dead’.
2. When the posting consists of short updates with no real content. eg, “hi just letting everyone know i won’t be posting tomorrow.”
Kumiko
xo
1. too many posts
2. posts which are not relevant
They are the two main reasons I unsubscribe.
I second the unsubscribing when there are no posts for an extended period of time.
I also subscribe to any new site that I visit and like, but if I find after time that the site is just repeating what I’m reading elsewhere, or if it’s just not as interesting as I had first thought, I’ll unsubscribe.
For me it’s if the blog is updated too often. More than about 4 posts a day is quite a lot to wade through, even if they’re just links.
I also go away if the topic or the posts aren’t as relevant for me as I’d thought at the first glance. Even if it’s fun to read, there’s only so much procrastination I can justify. (Having just clicked “unsubscribe” on Shoemoney, I know whereof I speak.)
I unsubscribe from a blog when the topic shifts and like Kumiko commented – short updates that don’t contain quality content. Also , sometimes (and only sometimes) when a blogger starts to get a decent audience, the attitiude/ego can take over and effect the direction and quality of posts…Just my 2c
For me, I will unsubscribe if the posting frequency starts to drop way less than what it should be (e.g. no post for one month or more).
I’ll definitely unsubscribe if the only thing the blogger want to say is the negative sides of the issue, because I believe there are 2 sides of the coin.
I hate to see bloggers to go off topic frequently because its reflect the inability of the bloggers to focus on one thing.
Hi Darren.
Here’s a tip: I recently used Google Reader’s trends feature to remove loads of blogs that hadn’t been updated in a while. That really helped prune the list of subscriptions. It also pointed out a couple of valuable blogs whose feeds had changed for some reason or another.
So inactivity is one reason. As Adele says, blogs that update too often can become overwhelming and are a big turn off. Remember when Performancing first launched and it was impossible to keep up? And now SearchEngineWorld, which I just don’t have time to read.
Sometimes bloggers go completely off-topic, permanently and that’s another. One guy’s feed is made up mostly of his postings to del.icio.us and about one actual post per week.
RSS feeds from Blogs that provide redundant news items only…
I’m with Adele – posting too often, or posting articles that are too long, will put me off an RSS feed because it starts to suck time away from me, unless the content is really good (e.g. Lifehacker, or Steve Pavlina.com).
I’ll very rarely unsubscribe from a blog because it doesn’t post enough – I have google reader configured to only show blogs that have been updated. But once a month I’ll have a spring clean and if the blog seems dead or uninteresting I’ll prune it.
A couple things will cause me to unsubscribe from an RSS feed …
1. Rehashing the same popular things that are already posted on blogs of a similar genre
2. Too many links interspersed throughout the text.
3. Too much text, without proper use of whitespace.
4. Excessively long posts
5. Multiple posts in a day
I wrote a short entry on 5 Ways to Kill your RSS subscribers on my blog (http://www.yugatech.com/blog/?p=1649) last week. Mostly, it has got to do with quality & consistency.
My main reason are partial feeds… I don’t get it why some bloggers do it (well I know why). What’s the point then of even offering a feed?
Awesome question, and quite a lot to learn here.
I unsubscribe when:
1. posting frequency drops
2. blog topic diverges too much
3. posts that dont call my attention (i.e. when I just skip through the feed of a blog without reading it)
and the one that no one mentioned:
4. when the RSS feed reloads the latest 10 or 20 posts every single time I open the reader, I mean come on I have already read those posts, I am not sure what issue causes that but some blogs reload all their posts every time, its annoying.
1. When they post too much.
2. When they don’t post enough.
I am generally pretty rubbish at removing feeds hthough!
For me it is:
– Quality. Low quality posts are a good reason to un-subscribe. I don’t like to waste my time.
– Negativity. I don’t want to be de-motivated. I want to be inspired. Negative messages, even if they are true, are not good for me.
– Subjectivity. Lots of personal rants and stuff. I am not interested in the details of other people’s personal lives. I am more interested in thoughts and ideas.
– Redundancy. I can read regular news on newspapers or dedicated websites (BBC, CNN, etc.). I can read commentary though, but thoughtful ones, that helps me think or see something differently.
– Relevancy of topics. I usually subscribe for a while to see what kind of content is being posted, what the blog is about, and then decide if I want to continue. Even if the content is very entertaining and of very high quality, I have to be interested in the topic. And that does not mean “one” topic.
I would unsubscribe for the following reasons
1) only excerpts in RSS
2) too many posts in a single day that makes me hard to follow what he is upto…..
3) Digressing too much from the theme…
4) repeated thoughts from others…
Most of this has been said above, but the reasons for me (in order):
– Partial Feeds
– Inactive posting (a week or so now and again is ok, but…)
– Too many posts per day (over 4 is too many for me)
– Too much self-promotion (1 of 4 is fine, but some do 2 of 3)
I’ll agree with Tara’s thought about excessive length, though I haven’t used that to whittle down…until now (thanks, Tara).
I’ve pretty much set my limit to 400 feeds (incl. search strings), I’ve got a “trial” folder I use to watch a feed…some get into permanent status, others don’t
I’ve done it both because the blog went off topic and because it ended up too narrowly wed to a too-narrow niche (just so much you can say about some things). I’ve unsubscribed because of a really bad faux pas – a post containing offensive, discriminatory, or unduly harsh diatribes against others personally. I’ll quit a blog that’s quit me by not publishing. And I’ve unsubscribed because I just lost interest in the topic.
1. you find interesting post (s) and you subscribe. then you see that s(he) doesn’t write like that or that the topics are not what you want to read… inconsistent writing
2. too many posts. you find 10 post in the reader each day. not all interesting
3. incomplete posts. you cannot read them in the feedreader
4. you have some limited time. you find new sites to subscribe to. then… on some sunday you go to your feed reader and unsubscribe, you unsubscribe even from some good sites
i definitely learn some tips with this subject … no wonder i see some readers unsubscribe from my feed … surprise to learn that too many new postings per-day will turn readers off … the partial needs could be another factor in my case … blog too lengthy? so what should be the standard length? … sorry darren to hijack this to get some feedback at the same time …
ok, to me i’ll unsubscribe if:
– the contents do not interest me anymore (deviate too much)
– the contents are not properly align and full of grammar errors
– repeatedly blog the same topic over & over again
– “dry” contents
cheers …
wow – this one’s going to be a hot thread – 20 comments in an hour and some interesting themes emerging!
Until recently, hardly anything. I might move the dead wood down to the bottom of my NetVibes page out of sight. However, since moving to Google Reader, I used the ‘Inactivity’ report to weed out dead, duplicated or relocated blogs.
Posting (in)frequency doesn’t particularly bother me. If someone has a brilliant post every 10 weeks, that’s fine by me. That is the advantage of RSS. I am no longer checking the author’s site daily.
Similarly, if someone goes off on a Google Reader evangelistic mission or adopts GTD or something else which doesn’t interest me, I normally tend to keep the subscription for the content that does.
Partial feeds are a pet hate but, again, if the content is compelling enough, I’ll click through.
Constant, unadulterated, shameless, self-promotion and narcissism is a big turn off, though so I recently unsubscribed to John Chow.
It’s definately got to be partial feeds for me. I have limited ‘Net access at work so RSS feeds are a godsend. I hate getting the first three-or-so lines of a post and then have to click through to read the rest – which I don’t anyway.
I usually hate self-promotion, but I just finished a blog post earlier this morning that hits on this pretty accurately, haha:
http://www.harrymaugans.com/2007/02/26/seven-surefire-ways-to-ruin-your-blog/
Regards,
– Harry Maugans
I’ll flip the question, reasons I stick with a feed;
Loyalty; ie I have gotten to know the person/blog well and think that they will pick the quality/frequency up again.
Quality; High quality articles consistently, one that springs to mind is Trent at The Simple Dollar.
Niche; Blogs that are very similar to my own or blogs in a niche that I’m interested in.
and reasons to leave, too much;
Ego
Advertising
Ranting
Off-topic posts
Posts with no value (regurgitated news)
I’m fairly loyal but there have been a few occasions that I have dumped a blog even if the content is ok, mainly because of the top reason.
I unsubscribe to a blog when they get pushy. i.e.
One blog recently made you click through their sponsor to read anything more than the headline of the article.
Also, one the edge of being cut are some for over-posting. I admire prolificity, but piling up blog posts just to up a count or resending previous content with small updates is annoying and gets a cut too.
@Sam, I decided to check out stevepavlina.com… and promptly unsubscribed from his feed. Wow, talk about wordy. I don’t have the time to sit down and go through these huge posts. Give me a manageable article length and I’ll stay, but otherwise… his blog definitely suffers from TLDR (too long, didn’t read).
[…] Today, Amit Varma, at India Uncut finally reverted to full feeds, and Darren Rowse, at ProBlogger asked “What makes you unsubscribe from a blog’s RSS feed?”, prompting me to write the first post in the “novice blogger” series on “how to retain feed subscribers”. […]
One thing that bugs me is when a blogger posts a new item… and every single one of his old items also pops back up in my reader listed as a new entry.
I think that before we ask “why do we unsubscribe from feeds?”, we need to ask “why do we subscribe from feeds?” Read my post on “how to retain feed subscribers”.
To summarise, if you are already doing the basics right, that is, blogging with flair and originality and markeyting your blog well, here are a few quick fixes to retail your feed subscribers –
1) Offer full feeds.
2) Offer full feeds.
3) Offer full feeds.
4) If you blog about a veriety of topics, consider offering category-wise feeds.
5) If you post more than ten posts a day, consider offering a “best of” feeds.
6) If you post more than ten posts a day, out of which two or three are long posts and the rest are short posts, consider putting the short posts in an “asides” category and offering a separate feed for them.
[…] Darren Prowse kicked off an interesting discussion asking what makes you unsubscribe from a feed. […]
As it is very easy to subscribe to a feed, if I happen upon a Web site and find it of any slight degree of interest, I will subscribe. Every once in a while, I go through my feeds and will choose to unsibscribe from them that do not come to mind as of interest. As well, if a feed gives me more information that I can possibly digest, or is in duplicate (aka not unique!) from something else I read, I delete it.
mp/m
Wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve read every comment. All interesting stuff, with a few clear themes emerging.
I’m also lazy in clearing out feeds, so for me to remove one it takes several months of posts that I’m not interested in before I decide to quit. As a preference I like to see a blog updated once or twice a day, but no more as I’ll just get overwhelmed.
I usually unsubscribe when the blogger stops talking about the things they used to, which I no longer find interesting
I’d unsubscribe a blog for:
a) posting too much (I can’t take three posts a day, as I subscribe for 50+ other blogs…);
b) not posting enough;
c) useless content. In other words: “Don’t waste my time!”;
d) partial feeds. I REALLY hate this. It makes feeds useless, so why would I keep it on reading?
Good question. Here are the top things for me: Too much off-topic stuff (like tons of posts about blogging on a purportedly non-blogging, topical site), rarely updating, publishing too many articles per day, simply regurgitating articles from elsewhere.
Partial feeds are a turn-off, but they can be overcome by truly great content.
Another problem for me: regular grammatical issues. For example, referring to single entities in the plural (“Adsense are…”) instead of singular (“Adsense is…”).
(Sound familiar? Sorry for bringing it up here, but it’s true.)
Here’s the thing: Whenever the people (plural) at Adsense are doing something, then Adsense (singular) is doing something. Here again, great content can overcome this problem (ProBlogger is evidence), but it still makes me cringe whenever I see it. This is probably a bigger issue for me than partial feeds.
I will unsubscribe from feeds if they are not delivering a high enough standard of (relevant) content that I am looking for.
I generally take a maximum of five seconds to scan through RSS feeds that I am subscribed to. If something catches my eye then I read on, if not I click on to the next unread feed.
If a blog regularly posts content that I’m not hugely interesting then I unsubscribe. It doesn’t make it a bad blog/feed, just not right for me.
I unsubscribe when a feed has:
– Too many posts
– Partial feeds
and
– Big, intrusive ads
1. Too many posts (6 per day seems to be my threshold)
2. A complete change in topic “focus.” Recently a blog I read has gone on a political rant, even though it is supposed to be a business blog.
3. Title feeds, meaning the post title is the only thing that shows up in the RSS reader and shoots you to the site.
Generally I never unsubscribe unless I find I just don’t care about the content anymore. If I find I am consistantly skipping nad not reading the posts I’ll drop it to reduce clutter.
I never drop a feed nomatter how infrequent or dead it seems to be. Personally the beauty of RSS is that if I find an infrequently updated blog that I like the content and style of, I can read it without constantly checking to see if they updated “this week”. Also I have had several seemingly dead feeds that have come completely back to life aftera hiatus.
If it’s not updating, it’s not like it’s cluttering upmy new items list.
For certain sites I get redundant posts because I might monitor a similar niche in Google’s Blog Search. You can subscribe to search results on certain keywords. So I get duplicate items on many and this has resulted in many unsubscribes from feeds and I just go with the Google Feed.
The other reason is too many posts. This is what resulted in me unsubscribing from sites like Engadget and LifeHacker. Especially LifeHacker, it felt like they were just trying to reach a quota many days on some of their posts (which contradicts the whole purpose of LifeHacker IMO).
dm
http://www.bloggingmuses.com
On a side note. Not posting enough isn’t a big deal for me. I have friend’s personal blogs I subscribe to and they might only update once per month. But in Google Reader the infrequently updated just don’t take up any real estate on my screen or in my mind because I have the feeds set to SHOW ONLY NEW instead of SHOW ALL.
Outta sight outta mind (until they post that is …)
dm
http://www.bloggingmuses.com
I unsubscribe if:
1) a lengthy amount of time consistently passes between posting
2) multiple posts per day consistently occur
3) i’m a regular commenter on a blog and the author does not comment back in some way. It’s like being involved in a conversation with a group of people only to have no one even look your direction…
Biggest reason for me: A site that repeatedly edits or otherwise causes the same article to keep refreshing 5-10+ times in one day. If I don’t *really* like that blog, it’s outta’ there. -j
Attitude, attitude, attitude.
I have unsubbed from some very popular blogs because of blogger attitude. The world is negative enough without constant bombardment of negativity from a blogger, especially when she is being negative and nasty about an area that is not really her realm of expertise!
If I really want more of that kind of garbage, I’ll go listen to some of the hollywood types spouting their wisdom instead ;-)
Most the time, it’s when a feed starts showing lots of code rather than the content of the topics.
As a blogger do check the rss and atom feeds to check this is not happening.
Prefer regular posts to not many, but does fluctuate when there is news on the topics that we are interested and try to prompt it.
Blog Searches on Yahoo and Google are good sources and do not need subscribing to.
mapperz
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/
I can think of several reasons.
1. Partial feeds, especially when the teaser text is usually just a sentence. A blog would have to have VERY compelling content for me to keep it in spite of that.
2. Posting frequency drop-off. I’ll keep a blog that only posts once a week, but a blog that was daily but has dropped to a week or more between posts will probably get dropped.
3. Not enough original content. If a blog is pretty much saying the same things as other blogs in that space, and not offering anything else of value, I’ll drop it and keep the more interesting ones.
4. Partial feeds. It bears repeating, because it’s the biggest one. I was recently pleased to find that a couple of webcomics I enjoy offer RSS feeds, but I still had to click through to the site to see the actual strips. I unsubcribed from those feeds shortly after that.
1) too many posts (although most times I’ll just “mark all as read” if I get too behind)
2) uninteresting content
I second the call for full feeds. If I’m using google reader, I’m doing it to save time and full feeds allow me to do that.
Long intervals between posts don’t bug me much as long each new post in quality.
These are the things that make me unsubscribe from a feed:
1. Posting too many small, trivial posts.
2. No formatting in the posts making them hard to read.
3. Posting off topic too often.
I do not mind partial feeds too much. Some bloggers post in-depth articles about their topics and I think partial feeds make sense (kind of like an abstract). On the other hand, a 200 word excerpt from a 300 word post is kind of ridiculous.
Partial feeds.