Trusted reviews: personal computers, internet and web, webmastering
August 31st, 2005 — RSS
Author: ksoft
RSS feeds seem to be the breakout technology for the year. With more users turning to them for driving traffic to their site, it’s no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake. A careful editing of your RSS feed could make the difference between being classified as genuine content or RSS spam.
June 5th, 2005 — RSS
Author: Allan Burns
When you are involved in RSS everyday you get to see the fantastic opportunities RSS can bring to the web and how it can contribute to bettering the browsers experience and the webmasters bottom line. Unfortunately there is a dark side of RSS use.
It continues to amaze me how some webmasters always see ways to abuse new communication mediums. It is well know that email has become synonymous with spam. Email was a great communication tool when it arrived, but individuals soon started to abuse email by sending unsolicited messages to everyone with an email address. Now the same seems to be happening with RSS.
May 4th, 2005 — RSS
Author: Sandra Stammberger
First it was banner ads, then Google AdSense and now, the latest way to make money on your web site could very well be RSS feeds. Say what? I said: RSS is hot and you should be using it to drive eyeballs to your site. Here’s how it works:
Depending upon who you ask, RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”. Regardless of what you call it, RSS is a way to automatically publish (syndicate) someone else’s content on your web site. Now don’t worry, that’s not the same as stealing someone else’s content. There is nothing illegal about using RSS feeds. In fact, the publisher of the content wants you to have it show up on your site and that’s why he or she makes it available as an RSS feed to begin with.
So what’s in it for all parties concerned?
April 29th, 2005 — RSS
Author: Syed Ibrahim
RSS has been around for more than a decade but until recently “Rss Technology” started penetrating its roots deep inside the soil of the so-called E-world.
Using this standard, web publishers provide updates, such as the latest news headlines, special announcements, press releases or weblog postings through their RSS content
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML vocabulary for describing metadata about web sites, ideal for news syndication. Originated by userland software in 1997 and used by Netscape to populate Netscape’s My Netscape portal with external newsfeeds (”channels”) RSS has taken on a life of its own and has become perhaps the most popular XML format today. Thousands of web sites today use RSS as a “what’s new” mechanism to drive traffic their way. (Including the BBC, CNET, CNN, Eweek, Forbes, Motley Fool, Wired, Red Herring, Yahoo, MSN and many more…).
April 22nd, 2005 — RSS
Using QuickSub to make it easier for your visitors to subscribe to your feed
Author: Allan Burns
You can make it easier for your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed. With a free and easy to install javascript function you can add the QuickSub feed button to your webpage in just a few minutes. Let me show you just how easy it is.
April 18th, 2005 — RSS
Author: Satyajeet Hattangadi
RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what exactly is RSS?
RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.
RSS allows publishers to “syndicate” their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.
It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.
However, not much attention has been given to the advantages RSS provides for search engine optimization.
Why Search Engines Love RSS
March 31st, 2005 — RSS
Author: S. Housley
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. It seems like all Internet businesses now have RSS feeds available; at least your competitors do. You have finally made the decision that you have to have one. Where do you start?
1.) Build a Feed
There are a number of desktop and web applications available that make feed creation easy. I would encourage anyone creating a feed to use one. Though not overly complicated, hand-coding an RSS feed can become a bit confusing and time-consuming. Most desktop software applications for building a feed include a wizard and contact-sensitive help, simplifying the process of creating a feed. Following a few simple steps in a wizard generally will produce an RSS feed in just a few minutes.
Publishers control what information is syndicated in the RSS feed, so ultimately it is the publisher’s decision as to whether to include teaser copy or full articles. Consider what you are trying to accomplish and who your target audience is when building the feed.
Software to Build a Feed - http://www.feedforall.com Tutorial for Creating Feed by Hand using XML - http://www.make-rss-feeds.com
2.) Transfer the Feed Onto Your Server
Once you have constructed an RSS feed you will need to transfer the feed to your server. This can be done using a standard FTP client (if it is not built into the feed creation software). The feed is usually placed in the domain’s root directory like this: http://www.mydomain.com/nameoffeed.xml , but as long as you know where it is it doesn’t really matter.
3.) Display the Feed on Your Website Using a Graphic of Some Sort
In order to signal to website visitors that an RSS feed containing content related to the website is available, include a colorful graphic on the website. It has become a standard that nearly all websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics such as flags as indicators that RSS feeds are available for specific content. The flags were initially bright orange rectangles but as the popularity has grown, webmasters have bent the rules a bit. NotePage has made a free online RSS graphic tool available that allows users to quickly customize buttons by selecting the text on the button and the color scheme of the button. Once the color and text is entered, a custom graphic is instantly created. Webmasters can easily match the style of the RSS button to a website’s theme. Graphics experience is not required. Simply select alternative colors and insert text to personalize RSS feed graphics. The RSS graphics tool can be used by clicking the following URL http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm or choose ready made graphics fom: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm .
4.) Include Information in the HTML of the Web Page So RSS Readers Auto-Detect Your Feed
After publishing an RSS feed it is important to let visitors know that the feed exists. Aggregators will automatically detect RSS on a website if you add a small bit of code in the header field of an HTML page.
[link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml"]
Be sure to replace http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml with the URL to the RSS feed and replace the brackets with “<" less than and ">” greater than symbols.
5.) Display the Feed’s Content on a Website
Contents contained in an RSS feed can be added to a website, providing site visitors an alternative method for viewing the content. The information will also help increase search engine interest. Displaying the feed as HTML can be accomplished. Providing fresh content on a regular basis will encourage site visitors return.
Tutorial for Displaying Feeds - http://www.small-business-software.net/display-rss.htm
6.) Submit the Feed to RSS Directories and Search Engines
As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools.
In order to increase exposure of an RSS feed it should be submitted to RSS search engines and directories. This can be done manually. Just as you would submit the URL of a website or web page to a search engine you will need to submit the link of the actual feed located on your website to the RSS directories. There is a large list of RSS directories at http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm . If you prefer to automate the submission process try RSS Submit at: http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html . An evaluation version is available.
About the author: About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.
March 23rd, 2005 — RSS
Author: Allan Burns
RSS to Javascript.
By far the easiest method is to use client side javascript to parse and display the headlines on your site. To achieve this all you need to do is cut and paste some HTML or javascript code into the web page where you want the RSS feed headlines to display.
To achieve this there are several sites that offer a free service that will allow you to select a few options to choose your feed source and display formatting parameters. You will then be presented with some javascript code that you can cut and paste into your website.
Now before I give you the address of the sites that offer this service freely there are a few points I need to clarify with you. Although you will achieve your goal of displaying dynamic content on your site in a few short minutes there are some downsides to this method.
Javascript is not search engine friendly.
As you may or may not already know, javascript is not visible to search engine spiders. They will not see the RSS feed you have parsed into your site and so this will not benefit you if you are doing this to better your search engine rankings.
You are using a third party service.
The second potential downside is that although the javascript is on your site you are actually calling a script on another server. This could lead to a couple of potential problems. If the server is busy it will mean the news feed will take longer to display on your site. The other point is if the third party server fails or disappears altogether then your feed will not be displayed at all.
In summary there are a few downsides, but if you do not code and want some feeds on your site quickly then this is the way to go. Ok, so now you understand what is involved here are the links to the sites that provide the free RSS to javascript service. All you need to do is follow the on site instructions.
About the author: Allan is the webmaster at http://www.newsniche.com a directory for webmasters to learn about RSS. RSS can be used to attract and retain visitors to your website.
March 23rd, 2005 — RSS
Author: S. Housley
Displaying RSS RSS offers webmasters a unique opportunity to display fresh content on websites. While publishing an RSS feed is a great way to generate site interest and increase communication, syndicating and displaying feeds from related relevant sources can also generate interest, increase traffic and improve search engine ranking.
RSS Radars Webmasters with limited time or capacity can syndicate related content. In a nut shell, webmasters can create RSS radars by combining a mix of content from related sources by grouping similarly-themed feeds. RSS feeds are updated at different intervals, providing an ever-changing collection of related information.
RSS is a form of eXtensible Markup Language or XML. Viewing an RSS feed in a web browser generally produces code that is not easy for website visitors to decipher. As a result, webmasters use tools to display the content contained in an RSS feed.
Content contained in RSS feeds can be added to websites a number of different ways. Each method for displaying the RSS feed has pros and cons associated with it. Webmasters will need to determine which option will best meet their hosting and technology needs.
Using Javascript to Display RSS Javascript is the easiest way to display RSS feeds on a website. There are a number of sites that will allow you to generate code that can be inserted into a website. The javascript will auto-update, showing the latest headlines as the feed is updated. Each time a visitor visits the website the javascript pulls the data from the feed. Often, the various scripts can be customized so that the look of the feed can be made to match a specific websiteeeds with hopes that the search engines will devour and spider the contents, you will be disappointed. When javascript is used to display RSS feeds, search engines do not actually “see” the contents of the feed, meaning that the search engines will not index the contents of the feed within the website.
Feedroll - Feedroll is a free service for syndicating RSS and ATOM news feeds on your website. Simply select a feed, customize the design, then copy and paste the code provided onto your page. http://www.feedroll.com
Using PHP to Display RSS PHP is a slightly more complex solution for displaying RSS. Like javascript, as the contents of the feed updates, the web page contents will update as the page is refreshed. The benefit of using PHP to display RSS is that the contents of the feed displayed with the webpage can be spidered and indexed by search engines. The result is a feed that always displays the most current information from the RSS feed and the web page content is considered search engine spider and robot-friendly.
rss2html.php - The rss2html.php script allows users to create web pages that will always display the most current information from the RSS feed, and because the resulting page is pure HTML, it will be in a format friendly to search engine robots. Using rss2html.php, webmasters can customize the format and look of the web page created from the feed. The RSS feed’s contents can easily be integrated into an existing website’s theme. The rss2html.php script parses the RSS file, extracts the pertinent information, formats it, and serves it up as regular HTML. http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm
FeedRoll Pro - FeedRollPro was really designed to enable publishers to syndicate their own content on other sites. But it can be used to syndicate news feeds from other sites on your own pages. http://www.feedrollpro.com
Using ASP to Display RSS ASP is similar to PHP. The free ASP/ASP.NET scripts can be used to convert RSS feeds into HTML and display on ASP/ASP.NET web-server.
rss2html.asp - ByteScout has implemented a guide for displaying of RSS/XML feed using free RSS2HTML.ASP script in ASP or ASP.NET environment. This script can be used free of charge on any ASP or ASP.NET web-server and generate HTML from RSS feed. This free ASP script uses MSXML to load RSS feed from URL and display it. You can use it as a standalone or call from script on HTML page to generate HTML content from RSS feed and then display on your HTML page. http://bytescout.com/how_to_display_rss_using_asp.html
RssFeed - RssFeed is an open-source custom ASP.NET server control that displays the contents of a specified RSS feed in an ASP.NET web page. http://www.scottonwriting.com/sowBlog/RssFeed.htm
If PHP or ASP is used to update feeds, the website will have free fresh, relevant content each time the feeds referenced are updated.
Export RSS to HTML If you wish to dress up the feed’s appearance you can use a template exporting the feed as HTML or an HTML table. Publishers can incorporate exported tables into an HTML template using a server-side include. Each time the feed is updated, the feed will need to be exported to HTML and uploaded along with the feed. Though this only takes a few moments, exporting RSS to HTML does require webmaster intervention to update the content. The end result, though, is a complete web page with an RSS feed in it that will be search engine-friendly.
FeedForAll - FeedForAll allows users to export RSS feeds from RSS to HTML. The look of the HTML can be modified to match an existing website’s design. http://www.feedforall.com
Using Services There are a number of services available that host and display RSS feeds, in many cases free of charge. Because these services operate on a different domain server there is little benefit to end-users displaying their feeds in this fashion. That said, the services are generally free of charge, so you get what you pay for.
RSS2HTML.com - Select a layout, color scheme and enter the URL of the feed. A web page URL will be generated that will display the feed in the selected scheme. http://www.rss2html.com
FeedBurner - FeedBurner provides a number of online services. Among them is a service that displays RSS feeds on a website. http://www.feedburner.com
Using XSL to Display RSS Although using XSL and CSS stylesheets to display XML directly is easy to understand in theory, it is rather tricky to implement in the real world and is very tough for novices to use successfully. Webmasters must be fairly familiar with CSS and XSL to have the formatting work well, and webmasters then have to address browser incompatibilities and exceptions. As a result, not a lot of resources or services yet exist to display RSS using XSL.
Using highly targeted feeds, webmasters can enhance their websites with themed content. Ultimately, providing relevant, educational or newsworthy information from reputable related sources will establish expertise in a specific area.
About the author: About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.
March 23rd, 2005 — Making Money, RSS
Author: Mustafa Khundmiri
A brand new marketing tool predicted to replace email is currently sweeping the World Wide Web like a storm.
The Internet is experiencing the so-called “orange” revolution and there’s no stopping to it. The online marketing world is rigorously seen chanting a 3-letter mantra, R-S-S.
Yes, RSS is here and it’s got substance, material, style, sophistication…
In a word, it’s got the ‘X’ factor.
RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, is the newest and the fastest growing technology online. Many publishers, webmasters and marketers are adopting RSS. It has helped spam go down to a great extent and made bulk messages a thing of past.
No wonder spammers are shaking in their boots all over the web!
Here are 6 strong reasons why RSS beats email marketing to the core:
1. Kiss Spam Filters Goodbye - RSS can help you distribute your content directly to your subscribers, without any spam filters interfering. Your messages will never get blacklisted and blocked and will always be delivered promptly, unless and until your subscribers choose to end the relationship themselves.
2. Subscribing Is Easy - Your subscribers don’t have to worry about giving out any of their personal details to subscribe and read your RSS feeds. All they need to do is, add your feed to their online or desktop RSS reader and that’s it. They are ready to receive and read content from you without any hassles.
3. Un-subscribing Is Easier - Removing your subscriber’s email from your email list automatically has it’s own share of problems, and it doesn’t work all the time. However, when you talk about RSS, it’s easy for your subscribers to unsubscribe from your publication. They can stop receiving messages from you any time by simply deleting your feed from their RSS reader. Simple as that!
4. Get Your Message Out In An Instant - Whenever you have something new to publish, all you have to do is update your already published feed and your message gets updated everywhere it’s subscribed. No more worrying if your subscribers got your message or not.
5. Never Get Accused of Spam - It’s very easy to get accused of sending unsolicited mail nowadays since people forget they even gave you their email address. RSS solves this problem completely, as the messages which you send out, will appear directly in your subscribers RSS reader. So the question of contacting them illegally does not even arise.
6. Build Long Lasting Relationships - Not only RSS builds a strong relationship with your existing subscribers but also helps in attracting new potent subscribers who are interested in what you offer. People who subscribe to your feed want to receive content from you and hence, can be regarded as subscribers you can count on.
RSS can work like a charm for your business and help you gain thousands of quality subscribers and leads within a few weeks…
You just have to become a part of the orange revolution!
About the author: Mustafa Khundmiri is the co-founder of http://www.rapidfeeds.com - A Free online service, which helps anyone, create, edit, publish and track RSS feeds online. Sign Up for your FREE account on his site and start publishing your own RSS feeds!