How to Use RSS Feeds

When Internet was created and particularly the world wide web came into existence, not even its inventors had an idea about how it would evolve. Today it has truly converted the world into a global village and it is rapidly changing the patterns of knowledge dissemination. It is easy to get lost in the realm of Internet and get drowned in information, if it wasn't for Internet search engines and facilities like RSS feeds.

What are RSS Feeds?

As the Internet expanded exponentially, millions of websites were created and tracking developments on every site became singularly impossible. Though Google search engine and similar web search sites indexed pages on the Internet, for the average user, keeping track of new updates on their favorite sites meant that they must visit each one of them and look for themselves. In an effort to make it easier for websites, to provide their users with information about latest published website content, RSS feeds were created.

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. It is a technique of syndicating the latest website data in the form of an XML format file, where newly published links of web pages are listed, along with metadata and date of publication. Thus any website, including news or e-magazine sites can provide regular updates to their readers.

How does Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, written in XML, reach the readers of a website? It is through RSS feed readers, also known as RSS feed aggregators, that users can view the newly published data on your site, once they subscribe to it. These RSS reader programs collect and display new content for the users.

What are RSS Feeds Used For?

Now that you know RSS feeds, let me explain how they are used. There's more than one way of gaining access to your website. People may land up through a search engine result or a link from another site. The RSS feed is meant for your devoted readership that visits your site often. It supplies them with information about all that is new. For a news site, RSS feeds are extremely essential, as they are the fastest way of providing devoted readers with latest breaking news flashes.

How to Use RSS Feeds on Your Website?

Some sites, that are based on a content management template, have an inbuilt RSS generator facility. There are many online services that can generate RSS feed for your site. There are software programs that you can use, to generate RSS feed. However, it is better to write code for automated generation of RSS feed, if your site has frequent publication of web pages. The RSS feed XML file needs to be generated in a specific standardized format which needs to be adhered to. Here is a sample XML code for generation of RSS feed for a single new link.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Name of Website Topic or Channel</title>
<link>http://sitename.com/</link>
<description>Topic Description</description>
<item>
<title>New Page Title</title>
<link>http://sitename.com/title-link</link>
<description>What the new page is about..</description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.sitename.com/title-link</guid>
<pubDate>Date of Publication</pubDate>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

This is the standard format for generating an RSS 2.0 file in XML format. These pages need to be saved as '.xml' and can be created in any text file. 'Channels' refer to various topics on your website pages and an item tag is for every new page link added to your site. You need to programatically implement an automated code that can generate RSS feeds for your website, as soon as a new article is published. You must provide a link on your website homepage to the RSS feed XML file, from where readers can subscribe to receive your feed.

Subscribing to RSS Feeds

Now that I have given a rough idea on how to use RSS feeds, let me explain how users subscribe to RSS feeds from a website. Every site has a RSS feed link inbuilt into its homepage. To subscribe, click on that link and use any standalone RSS reader or an online RSS reader (like Google Reader) to receive feeds from that site.

If you are into blogging, then you need not worry about generating RSS feeds as the host websites themselves provide that facility. Once a fellow blogger decides to 'follow' you, the RSS feeds for your blog are directly sent to him or her via the RSS reader software used. Both web designers and web users can immensely benefit from the use of RSS feeds. If you haven't tried out the facility already, then go ahead and try it out to get latest content from your favorite sites delivered directly.