RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication“. RSS is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and sometimes content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why Use RSS? What are the Benefits of RSS?

Repeatedly checking each website to see if there is any new content can be very tedious. This is where RSS comes in. Say for example your are interested in local news, athletics, cooking and astrology. You probably visit numerous websites daily. You may even come across a website occasionally that you book mark but forget to go back to to check. With RSS your can subscribe to a news feed for each website. These RSS subscriptions are added to a RSS feed reader on your computer and all the feeds from each website can be accessed quickly in one place. You don’t have to go to each site to check for new articles or updates and the RSS feed reader will alert you to any new articles posted.

Email notification of changes was an early solution to the problem of keeping people up to date with any new articles or updates to a website. Unfortunately, when you receive email notifications from multiple websites they are usually disorganized and can get overwhelming, and are often mistaken for spam. Furthermore with RSS you ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site’s email newsletter and thus giving out your email address to potential spammers!

RSS is a much better way to be notified of new and changed content, simply and at a glance. RSS is made up of a list of items presented in order from newest to oldest. Each item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the actual information being described.

Websites can run multiple RSS Feeds for separate subjects. If you check out your local paper website for example you may see a multitude of different feeds to subscribe to, such as local events, local news, gardening, astrology, you name it. Its really handy since you may only be interested in reading articles about a particular subject.

What is an RSS Feed Reader and News Aggregator?

RSS Feed Reader or News Aggregator, RSS Channels, RSS Readers, they are all the same thing;  software which allows you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use. Special computer programs called “RSS aggregators” have been developed that automatically access the RSS feeds you have subscribed to and organize the results for you.

There are many RSS aggregators available. Some are accessed through a browser, some are integrated into email programs, and some run as a standalone application on your personal computer. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows – integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers. Even ThunderBird my favourite email client is able toread RSS Feeds, so along with listing all your email accounts you can have a simple list of all your website subscriptions too all in one place.

Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available. If you look at FABI Designs website on the top of the right hand nav bar just above the search you will see an RSS feed icon. Click it and you will see the FABI Designs RSS feed. You can see this in the image below highlighted by the big red arrow Click on the link on my website and you will see our RSS Feed.

How do I Find an RSS Feed?

Websites usually indicate the existence of the feed on the home page with a link to “RSS“, or sometimes by displaying an orange button with the letters “XML” or “RSS”. Check on the bottom menu of a website too as often a small link a can be found there. RSS feeds are also often found via a “Syndicate This” link, usually found at the bottom of articles on a website.

Once you know the URL of an RSS feed, you can provide that address to an RSS aggregator program and have the aggregator monitor the feed for you. Many RSS aggregators come pre-configured with a list to choose from of RSS feed URLs for popular news websites so take some time to have a read through these as you may find some useful.

How do I Add an RSS Feed to my Website?

The special XML-format file that makes up an RSS feed is usually created in one of a variety of ways.

Most large news websites and most weblogs are maintained using special “content management” programs. Authors add their stories and postings to the website by interacting with those programs and then use the program’s “publish” facility to create the HTML files that make up the website. Those programs often also can update the RSS feed XML file at the same time, adding an item referring to the new story or post, and removing less recent items. Blog tools, CMS software, Ecommerce tools, etc, all usually come with a built in RSS feed. WordPress and Zen Cart for example have many RSS plugins. You should not have to do much to add RSS to your website. Once a plugin is installed the RSS feed is automatically maintained and updated when you add new products or articles to your website. The best thing to do is go to the website of the tool you are using and search for information on adding an RSS.

If you have a static website that is not built on a CMS then the solution is much more complicated. Websites that are produced in a more custom manner, such as with Dreamweaver or a simple text editor, usually do not automatically create RSS feeds. Authors of such websites either maintain the XML files by hand, just as they do the website itself.If you really want an RSS feed adding to this type of site the best solution I find is to migrate your website to a Content Management System and along with a handy RSS you will also get lots and lots of other useful functionality.

Reasons to Use RSS:

There are many reasons to use RSS feeds on your website. Some commonly mentioned uses are:

• Notification of the arrival of new products in a store
• Listing and notifying you of newsletter issues, including email newsletters
• Weather and other alerts of changing conditions
• Notification of additions of new items to a database, or new members to a group
• New Article alerts
• Alerts for events in the community, community headlines

I hope you found this article useful and now understand a bit more about what RSS is and how it could help you keep upto date with your interests or keep your website users up-to-date with changes to your website You may also like to read:

• Traffic to Your Blog
• 25 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website
• Search Engine Optimization Tip: Adding Content to your Web Site
• Seven Must Have WordPress Plugins You Need to be Using
• How to set-up Thunderbird Email Client

What is an RSS feed? is a post from: Build Me A Fab Website