RSS FEEDS

How to create one for yor site 

RSS feed is an XML-based file. RSS is a method of distributing links to content in your web site that you'd like others to use. In other words, it's a mechanism to "syndicate" your content. To give anyone access to the information contained in the feed, the feed must be placed on a Web-server. An RSS feed can contain various information and is especailly useful if you update a page or more very regularly. News, Specials, Forums and Blogs lend themselves to this particularly well. People are demanding it! Everyone wants to see whats new fast, not spend hours surfing the web anymore. It is getting more and more popular and is even promoted as supporting increased page rank etc. Time management and info at your finger tips is what today's internet users want.

There are several variations of the RSS format, but we recommend to use RSS 2.0 as it is the most popular and has a lot of features. Any RSS feed contains items, any item must have a title, description and a hyperlink.

The xml file you create in a simple text editor looks like this:

Change the words in green above to reflect your site. Repeat between<item> and </item> for the number of pages you have. Save the file by any appropriate name ie. mysitefeed.xml. Upload it on your server. It is wise to validate your script before widely advertising it's presence and you can do so at 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.

When your file is validated, you'll want the world to know about it! To make this happen, visit the RSS directories and search engines and submit. Get your own reader or aggregator set up and check the results for yourself. Google has a reader through it's Google Accounts.

You also want to make sure people who come to your web site see that you provide a feed and you advertise this by posting a link to the feed somewhere on the home page of a web site or using a button. The generic verion is  or  XML . A number of aggregators will supply you with their button so their users can easily add your feed to their reader.

Check out the Green Tree Frog Forum as an example.