RSS, Atom and Web Feeds can be a confusing topic when you first start to hear about them, you will typically see them next to small icons (also known as Chicklets) like you see below on web pages with the option to subscribe to them.
rss-icons
If you are in a browser when you click on an RSS feed icon it may open another web site URL but more often than not say in Firefox it will offer to remember the feed in the toolbar favourites by you clicking on the ‘subscribe’ button. Then you can chose to save the feed in your desired location. If you go to the link you saved in your Firefox bookmarks you will see the main link and then sub links that represent each new page created which when clicked will display in your browser, Furefox calls this feature ‘live bookmarks’, this probably won’t make much sense in terms of RSS feeds and the feed is better off being read in a browser like Safari or other news readers.
In Safari there is an RSS icon displayed on the right of the URL location field if the site has web feeds available, by clicking on the icon you will see the feed straightaway in the browser and can then bookmark it from there and if you click on the icon feed on the actual web page the same thing will happen. The display of the feed will have the blue horizontal bars with white headings and then the body copy in black.
The difference being that Safari has a real RSS reader built into it whereas Firefox will take you back to the html of the actual web site. THe RSS reader in Safari will also let you click back to the main site.
safari-rss-reader
So whats it all about? Well the feed is a structured content channel that allows subscribers to be kept updated in any existing and new content on your site in a quick way even without having to visit the site.
The feed is constructed in XML language to a set of industry standard protocols that allow feed readers to display the data – the protocols are multiple and you have probably seen words and icons such as Atom, RSS 1 & 2. (RSS has a couple of explanations for its acronym, Rich Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication are 2 of them). I wouldn’t get too hung on these though, most feed readers can display content from all with RSS 2 gaining more momentum.
The real benefit of an XML web feed is for busy subscribers, imagine if you had to monitor 20 web sites each morning for new content, going to 20 web sites could be a right pain compared to having one news reader that you can see in an instant all the new content pushed to you in real time, then you can decide if you want to visit the actual site or not.
These news readers are also known as RSS readers or news aggregators and can be either standalone software or browser based. As mentioned the Safari browser has an RSS reader built in but there is also a great standalone reader which is free called Newsfire for Mac users. For Windows you may want to try FeedReader.
newsfire-rss
If you would rather read your RSS Feeds via a browser, Google offer a service, or try Bloglines, which also is widely used. The iPhone also has RSS news readers, check it out at the app store in iTunes, there is a free version and some others at a fee.
When entering in a feed address to a reader or browser you would typically enter it in, in the following format:
http://www.yourwebsitehere/feed
Then this will automatically translate for you in the RSS reader as: feed://www.yourwebsitehere.com/feed/
Related posts:
No comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://www.seo-hub.net/feeders/trackback/