Post Summaries vs Full Posts on the Homepage

I have just activated the Post Teaser plugin. It cuts off each post around 100 words and ends up shortening up the homepage.

I seem to go back and forth on the idea of post summaries vs full posts on a blog homepage. I’d like to get your input, what do you feel is better.

Putting post summaries shortens up your homepage; without removing any posts. It gives users a certain number of words and then cuts the post off. This leaves the visitor having to click thru the posts individual page to finish reading.

This is good as it allows visitors to quickly skip over any posts they don’t want to read. It also cuts down on any duplicate content issues as you don’t have the exact same post on the homepage as you do on the individual page. However, it may be annoying to your visitor to have to click into the post to continue reading. Will they forget to come back to the homepage?

I guess it depends on the person. For the most part, I don’t know of too many people that read every word in every post on a blog. Some posts just aren’t interesting, to long, or not targeted towards some visitors.

My personal opinion is that post summaries are good. However, I read most blogs through my feed reader and don’t usually visit a blog unless I want to comment.

What are your feelings? Do post summaries on the homepage annoy you? Do they not effect you? Or do you just read the feed and never actually make it to the blog’s homepage?

[tags]post teaser, blog, opinion[/tags]