Aggregator’s Pro and Elite plans include a featured called “Full Text”. This is a premium service offered by Aggregator and integrated directly into the plugin which helps you import the full content from a source, even when its RSS feed doesn’t provide it.
While our premium Full Text service offers many benefits, it has its limitations. Here is a brief description of these possible limitations that may apply to some of your sources.
Not Importing All The Content
While in some cases the Full Text algorithm will not produce the desired results, this is likely not a bug but rather a result of the lack of technological means.
The Full Text algorithm works by going to each individual item’s source page and reading the content in order to determine the actual full content of the item. The software used for service does not see what humans see, but instead, it sees HTML markup, and from its structure it attempts to determine what is what on the page. From this HTML markup, the Full Text service is able to determine whether the content is to be imported and parsed as new post content on your site.
However, in some cases, it is not possible due to the HTML structure of the source page’s markup and lack of semantic connection between elements of the page that identify it as an “article”.
In other words, if the original source’s website uses a page structure where the required content is not all in one place or some elements, such as featured images, are actually outside the content area, the Full Text service will not be able to detect and import it.
Importing Too Many Items At Once
When it comes to certain very large source feeds (around 100 feed items or more), the Full Text script may not be able to import the full list of items due to the limitations of the software.
The Full Text RSS Feeds script is not designed to process such large numbers of items at one go. It might work for some sites, but it causes a lot of strain on the server since it will be pulling in all the posts, storing them in memory, and extracting their contents, all within the span of one request.
A common workaround for this is to stagger the Update Strategy for the various Sources on your site, such that the process does not strain the service all at one go.
Source Site Inaccessibility
When importing content, issues may arise if the original site is inaccessible. This can happen due to various factors, particularly if the site has restrictions such as token authorization, which require specific credentials to access content. Such measures are often implemented to protect sensitive data or manage API usage.
If the original site has such limitations applied, our Full Text service cannot retrieve the desired content directly. In this case, you can only rely on the content available in the provided RSS feed, which typically includes summaries or excerpts rather than full articles.
To navigate these limitations, it’s crucial to understand the specific restrictions of the sites you are importing from. If you encounter token authorization or similar barriers, checking the feed for available content is essential to gather relevant information while respecting the source site’s policies.
Failing to Import Images
It’s common for websites to add the featured image as the first image in a post, but it can sometimes be outside the post’s content area. In this case, if the image is not included in the RSS feed, the service might be unable to import the original featured image from the source.
The Full Text service is designed to read the content from the original post, so it may not able to detect any elements that are outside the content area.
