What Is RSS?

How does RSS syndication work? Say you publish a new web page about a particular topic. You want others interested in that topic to know about it. By listing the page as an “item” in your RSS file, you can have the page appear in front of those who read information using RSS readers or “news aggregators” (explained more in my sidebar article, RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content). RSS also allows people to easily add links to your content within their own web pages. Bloggers are a huge core audience that especially does this.

What does RSS stand for? There’s a can of worms. RSS as introduced by Netscape in 1999 then later abandoned in 2001 stood for “Rich Site Summary.” Another version of RSS pioneered by UserLand Software stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” In yet another version, RSS stands for “RDF Site Summary.”

History buffs might be interested that there’s been some rivalry over who invented RSS. This is why we have both different names and indeed different “flavors” or versions of RSS. Mark Pilgrim’s written an excellent article, What Is RSS, that charts the different versions with recommendations on which to use. I’ll also revisit the version choice you’ll need to make. But first, let’s look more closely at some basics of what goes into any RSS file.

How Easy Is RSS?

I’ve been exploring RSS because it was time that Search Engine Watch offered its own stories in this manner. I’ve read several tutorials about making a feed, and they generally suggest that it is easy. They often offer code that you can “cut-and-paste” and link over to specifications that I actually don’t find that clear.

For example, the RSS 2.0 specification has an “cloud” element that’s optional but which a lay person might still wonder if they should use it. Meanwhile, heaven help the person who stumbles into the RSS 1.0 specification and its complicated RDF syntax.

Sure, making an RSS file IS easy for many. If you understand HTML, you’ll probably understand enough to do a cut-and-paste from someone else’s RSS file to make your own file. Don’t know HTML? Start a blog, because several blogging tools automatically generates RSS files.

As for those non-technical people using WYSIWYG page building tools or personal home page building systems, have faith. Even you can build an RSS file from scratch, as long as you dispense with some of the extra features you probably don’t need. We’ll go through how to do this below. Later, I’ll also mention some tools that will even do some or all of the work for you.

The RSS File

At the heart of an RSS file are “items.” No matter what version of RSS you settle on, your file will have to include at least one item. Items are generally web pages that you’d like others to link to. For example, let’s say you just created a web page reviewing a new cell phone that’s being released. Information about that page would form an item.

To enter your item into the RSS file, you’ll need three bits of information:

* Title

* Description

* Link

The title and description of your item need not match exactly the HTML title tag of the web page that the item refers to, nor the meta description tag, assuming you use these (don’t know what they are? See my How To Use HTML Tags article). You can write any title and description that you think will describe the page. However, using your page’s title and meta description tag certainly makes it easy to copy and paste to build your RSS feed.

In the case of our example page, let’s say this is the information we settle on to define it as an item:

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/nokia3650.html

Now we have to surround that information with XML tags. These are similar to HTML tags, with the exception that unlike with HTML, there’s no set definition of XML tags. Anyone can make up a particular XML tag. Whether it is useful depends on the program that reads the resulting XML file. In the case of RSS feeds, they have their own unique set of XML tags that are defined. Use these correctly, and then anything that reads RSS will understand your information.

Did that make your head spin? If so, don’t reread — just carry on to see how simple it is. First, open a text editor like Notepad. We’re going to build our RSS file using it.

For your title, you need to start it with the tag, then follow this with the text of the title, then end with the tag. It looks like this:

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

For your description, you do the same, starting out with the opening tag, then following with the actual description, then “closing” with the tag. Now you have this:

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

Next, we add the link information, beginning with , following with the actual hyperlink, then closing with . That gives us this:

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/nokia3650.html

Now there’s one more thing we need to do. We actually have to define all this information as forming a particular “item,” which we do using a special item tag.

You place the opening item tag, at the top or start of all the information we’ve listed. You then place the closing item tag, , at the bottom or “end” of the item information. The finished product looks like this:

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/nokia3650.html

Congratulations! You’ve now made your first item. There’s a bit more to do to finish our RSS file. First, what if we have other items we want to syndicate? Then we simply add more item elements, just as we did above. You can have up to 15 items. New items tend to be inserted at the top, with old items removed from the bottom, to make room for new stuff.

With our example, let’s see how things look if we add two more items:

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/nokia3650.html

Sanyo Tablet PC Amazes!

I was dubious about the new Tablet PCs, but then I saw the latest from Sanyo. Wow, cool looks and it works!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/sanyotablet.html

Canon MegaTiny Digital Camera Too Small

OK, there is a limit to just how small is too small. Canon’s MetaTiny, no larger than a quarter, simply is too little to use properly

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/metatiny.html

Having defined items we want to distribute, we now have to define our site as a “channel.” You’ll use the same tags as with the items: title, description and link. However, this time the information will be about your entire site, rather than a particular page. That means our channel information would look like this:

All Gadgets Reviewed

If it’s a gadget, we review it. Learn what gadgets are hot and what’s not!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com

Now, how does something reading our RSS file know that the information above is for our “channel” when it looks just like item information? Simple. As long as we don’t surround this information with an opening and closing tags, it won’t be seen as item information but rather as channel information. That gives us this:

All Gadgets Reviewed

If it’s a gadget, we review it. Learn what gadgets are hot and what’s not!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/nokia3650.html

Sanyo Tablet PC Amazes!

I was dubious about the new Tablet PCs, but then I saw the latest from Sanyo. Wow, cool looks and it works!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/sanyotablet.html

Canon MegaTiny Digital Camera Too Small

OK, there is a limit to just how small is too small. Canon’s MetaTiny, no larger than a quarter, simply is too little to use properly

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/metatiny.html

There are a few last things we need to do. First, we need to add a tag at the very top of the file saying that this is written according to the XML 1.0 specifications. Right under this, we also have to say what RSS version we are using.

So far, everything we’ve done is compatible with UserLand’s popular RSS 0.91 version. However, it also matches UserLand’s latest RSS 2.0 version, as well, so we’ll define the file as meeting that specification. This will allow us to add other neat features in the future, if we want.

Finally, after the RSS tag, we need to add an opening “channel” tag. That gives us this at the top of the file:

At the bottom of the file, after all the items we want to syndicate, we have to insert a closing channel and RSS tag, in that order. Those look like this:

This means our complete file looks like this:

All Gadgets Reviewed

If it’s a gadget, we review it. Learn what gadgets are hot and what’s not!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com

Nokia 3650 Combines Phone And Photos

I’ve been playing with the new Nokia 3650. Finally, someone has got the combination of a cell phone with digital camera capabilities right!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/nokia3650.html

Sanyo Tablet PC Amazes!

I was dubious about the new Tablet PCs, but then I saw the latest from Sanyo. Wow, cool looks and it works!

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/sanyotablet.html

Canon MegaTiny Digital Camera Too Small

OK, there is a limit to just how small is too small. Canon’s MetaTiny, no larger than a quarter, simply is too little to use properly

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/metatiny.html

Mind Blowing Options

Everything shown above is the bare basics you need to create a file and start syndicating content from your web site. However, there are additional things you could do.

For example, rather than your entire web site being a “channel,” you could actually have different content from within the web site be defined into separate channels. That’s something I’m not going to explore in this article, but some of the resources below will guide you through this, when you feel more comfortable.

As hinted at, RSS 2.0 allows you to insert all types of additional information into your feed. It can make your head spin to look at these and decide what to use. The easy answer is, don’t bother with anything you don’t know. Not every aggregator supports all the options offered. As long as you provide the minimum information suggested above, you should be fine.

Did I Choose The Right RSS Version?

Earlier, I’d mentioned there are different versions of RSS. Even though we entered the bare minimum of information, it turned out that we were able to have a file that was easily considered to be RSS 2.0, the latest version promoted by UserLand and which is widely used.

Indeed, the Syndic8 site reports that the most popular format of RSS by far is RSS 0.91 — and though we’ve used RSS 2.0, our file as shown is entirely compatible with RSS 0.91. In short, we’re in safe company.

What about that RSS 1.0 version that I said was complicated. Well, it is complicated. However, some people might want to make use of some of the special capabilities that it offers. If you are interested in it, then check out the official specification.

Saving The File

Now that we’re done adding to the file, we need to save it. But what name shall we give it? I’ve looked and not seen any guidance on this. I imagine that’s because as long as the file is valid (more below), it probably doesn’t matter what it’s called.

To make my own decision for Search Engine Watch, I decided to imitate what I saw out at UserLand, which promotes the RSS 2.0 standard that we used. UserLand’s example feeds all ended .xml, so let’s do the same. As for the first part, that really can be whatever you like. For our example, let’s say we just call it feed.xml.

Now that our file is saved, we can place it anywhere we want on our web server. Let’s say we put it in the root or home directory. Then the address to our RSS file would be:

http://allgadgetsreviewed.com/feed.xml

Validating The File

Now our RSS file is done, but did we do it right? To find out, we need to validate it. Use the aptly named Feed Validator service. Simply enter the address to your RSS file, and you’ll be told if everything is OK — or if there’s something wrong you need to fix.

How about a quick preview of how your new feed actually looks? Then pay a visit to Wytheville Community College News Center. Again, enter your feed URL, and you’ll see the clickable headlines and story descriptions nicely assembled inside a box.

The service will also generate a JavaScript code that you can post on your site. Anyone copying the JavaScript can automatically have your feed syndicated into their pages — pretty neat!

Get Syndicated!

Now that your file is validated, you want the world to know about it! To make this happen, visit the RSS directories and search engines listed in the RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content article. They generally offer submission pages, where you can inform them of your feed.

You also want to make sure people who come to your web site see that you provide a feed. It’s very common to post a link to the feed somewhere on the home page of a web site. If you have a dedicated news page, you may want to put it there, as well.

You can link to your feed with an ordinary HTML link. However, many sites use a small orange XML icon to link to the feed. I’ve also seen some sites use blue RSS icon. I could find no standard about using these. So, to be safe, I did all three with Search Engine Watch. Look on the home page, and you’ll see how it’s done (and help yourself to the icons, if you need them).

Finally, it’s good to “ping” one of the major services that track when web logs and RSS content changes. By doing this, you ensure that other sites that monitor these know to check back at your site for more content.

Weblogs.com is one of these major sites. Enter your site’s name and the URL of your feed into the manual Ping-Site Form, and it will know you’ve updated your feed. The Specs page explains how to set up automatic notification.

blo.gs is another major change monitoring site. It is supposed to receive any changes that come from Weblogs.com, so you shouldn’t need to notify it separately. However, if you want to be on the safe side, it’s easily done. Use the ping form, which also explains how to set up automatic pinging, as well.

Tutorials & Resources

RSS Headline Creator allows you to skip coding and manually choose the number of headlines you’d like to include in your file, up to the 15 maximum allowed. Then a form with boxes that you fill out will be made. Enter the right information, then push the “Make The Code” button. Your RSS file’s code will be generated, for you to copy and paste into a text editor and save.

How To Get Your Web Site Content Syndicated is a Dec. 2002 tutorial by Kalena Jordan and Dan Thies from which I drew inspiration to get my own feed going.

Syndic8’s How To Section lists a variety of tutorials that discuss how to build RSS files.

Content Syndication with RSS is a book by Ben Hammersley that was just released in March 2003. I haven’t read it, but everything I’ve heard is that it should be excellent.

RSS Resources Directory from UserLand categorizes helpful information related to RSS, in different categories.

Postscript: Search Types: Blogs & Feeds and SEO: Feeds are sections of the Search Topics area available to Search Engine Watch members with lots of information on the topic of feeds since this article was originally written.

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Everybody has a blog. No matter the topic or discussion someone has got it covered. From online diaries in the mid nineties to becoming one of the foundations of the internet, blogging along with video and social bookmarking is changing not only how we get our information but also the manner in which online business is conducted. This is why it would be a good idea for you incorporate blogging into your overall internet marketing plan or go on www.blog-and-ping.com. What blogging can do very effectively is to build your target markets and bring you a steady flow of internet traffic and customers. Blogs are free and easy to run. Just go to Blogger or Wordpress.com, signup and start posting. Try to start out posting on a daily basis or at least a three to four times a week then use these tips to get traffic to your blog Email Marketing List In a recent survey, 100% of online users say they communicate using email. This is a good way to send messages to your opt in email list with links going back to your blog web site. Let them know you’ve posted a new article or video on your blog. Use snippets or summaries to entice people to click on the link and get further information. The more times people on your list see your blog the more they will get to know you and give a second look to some products or services you maybe offering. In addition you can gain more viewers to your blog by giving away a subscription along with free report. Advertise in ezine publications that target your niche as well as forums and classified ad sites like US Free Ads. Free RSS Feed Rich Site Summary also known as Really Simple Syndication is the process of delivering constantly updated content to your blog by pacing a block of code (known as a feed) on your webpages. In our fast paced information age, RSS fits perfectly. It allows your visitors to stay up to date on any new information you’ve added to your blog without necessarily having to visit every page on your blog. Instead they view a window that list the headlines followed by a quick summary of what each article is about. Having a free RSS feed accomplishes two things besides getting more site traffic. First since the content is updated frequently it keeps the search engines coming back to your site and crawling for the new information. Second it can increase your visibility among your blog visitors. This is important because while they may not visit your blog everyday, providing a feed to your subscribers is a good way to for them to stay in touch. Network A blog network is a compilation of blogs under a sole domain or company name. Some web visitors take comfort in clicking a link that takes them to different bloggers who cover the same topic or go on www.profit-pulling-toolbars.com. This is also an excellent way to get free advertisement and free web traffic to your site since people who visit the network will invariably be exposed to your blog. You can also submit to blog directories or just ask your readers to give you feedback on something you posted (the search engines view comments as updating content on your blog). No matter which technique you choose, blogging offers a new way to connect with your readers. Simple, unfiltered and a perfect fit for today’s internet, blogging is a smart resource to have in your internet marketing online tool kit.

These days, it is much easier to create a website than it used to be. In general, website-creation programs are much simpler to use – and you also have the option of signing up with an online web host with easy-to-use page creation tools.

But the biggest change has to be the advent of the blog.

“Blog” is short for ‘web log’. Web log site started off as a way for people to create an online diary. Bloggers would simply log on, tap out a paragraph or two giving their thoughts on life and the universe (and everything in between); click ‘publish’ and that was that. Their words were live on the Internet for anyone to see. The big appeal of a blog was that it was interactive: readers were welcome to add a comment on any post, with a link back to their own blog or website.

Gradually, bloggers started to want more. They wanted easy ways to upload photos, and extra pages on the site – just like a ‘real’ website. They wanted a range of themes, to better express their personality or business.

Programmers everywhere came to the party, particularly with WordPress, a well-known open source. Now, if you want a website/blog, it’s possible to:

Now that you can add separate pages to blogs – just as you can with a standard website – many people are turning to them as their preferred way of building a website. By using various plugins, it’s possible to do pretty well anything you want.

= What Are “Plugins”? =

Plugins are extra features available for your blog to make your life easier. You can get plugins, for example, that will:
– help you block spam
– make it easy to upload and sort your photos
– ping the search engines so they know when you’ve added new content
– insert Adsense blocks software so you can earn money from your blog

There are quite a number of plugins available now – take some time to find out what they will do.

= Help With Using Wordpress =

While Wordpress is not the only blog software available, it is an excellent choice because (a) it’s free; (b) it’s relatively easy to use; (c) it’s open-source, and therefore has a lot of people working on it constantly to make it better, and (d) there are quite a few ‘how to’ sites on the Internet showing you how to make the most of your free Wordpress blog.

One of them is Guido Stiehle (“The Jungle Marketer”) who offers an excellent free tutorial (with video tutorials) that will show you, step by step, how to set up and use your blog. You can find other providers by simply typing ‘how to use Wordpress’ into a search engine.

Spend an hour or two browsing, and you’ll see why a blog is a very viable option for establishing your presence on the Internet.