A Brief Guide To RSS

Before proceeding to other parts of the article, please take your time to read the following definitions:

RSS:
RSS, rich site summary, or really simple syndication, is an XML format for sharing contents (such as news items) among different Web sites.

Feed:
It is an xml file containing headlines and descriptions also called news feed, content feed, xml feed or web feed.

Web Syndication:
Web syndication is a form of syndication in which a section of a website is made available for other sites to use. This could be simply by licensing the content so other people can use it, but more commonly these days web syndication refers to making Web feeds available

XML:
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, capable of describing many different kinds of data. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet.

Atom:
atom is a really small particle or an XML-based document format and HTTP-based protocol designed for the syndication of Web content such as weblogs (or blogs) and news headlines to Web sites as well as directly to user agents. It is based on experience gained in using the various versions of RSS.

Now let move to other parts of this article.

How does RSS work?
A website can allow other sites to publish its content by creating an RSS document and register the document with an RSS publisher.

Some Benefits of Using RSS:

1)Alternative To Email
Although you subscribed for email newsletter but you may be tired of all the junk mail you receive. By subscribing to RSS feed, you don't need to worry about receiving any email.

2)Faster Than Browsing Web Page
RSS feeds are loosely coded and thus reading RSS feed is faster.

3)Search Engine Friendly
Being rich in contents and keywords and also constantly updating, major search engines like google, yahoo and alexa love them.

4)More Exposure For Your Site
Unless regular messages, RSS feeds are picked up and monitored by feed reader and blog sites such as weblog.com. This is similar to getting more targeted search engine traffic.

5)Content Is Delivered Instantly
With RSS, contents are delivered instantly to the reader over their choices of feed reader. RSS is a content delivery system that does not get filtered. All RSS articles are sent straight through your subscriber.

6)Can Get Listed Within Hours
You can get your site indexed in yahoo and msn within hours, using RSS.

7) Easily Remove Yourself From The Subscription
All RSS articles are also instantly delivered. You can easily remove yourself from the RSS feed subscription and it is as simple to hitting the delete key.

8) Different Media Type Support
RSS can support many media types including audio and video.

9) Easy Handling Options For Publishers There are no subscription or removal links that RSS publishers need to take care of.

What Does It Require To Read A RSS Feed?

1)Internet connection

2) A Feed reader, to read the RSS feed from the RSS channel (browser like opera has inbuilt feed reader)

3)If you are a publisher, then you need a way to publish your article.

For creating an RSS feed, you need to create an RSS file. For creating an RSS file, read some tutorial by searching at google.

After creating the rss file you need to save it with either of the two extensions .xml or .rss. After saving you need to validate the RSS file, which you can do at http://www.feedvalidator.org

After validating your RSS file, you need to syndicate it. For this you should have a code that other webmasters can place on their websites that will display your headlines. This code is usually a java script that the webmaster places on his site.

When anybody click on the XML or RSS link, the RSS feeds (or XML feeds) are instantly downloaded to his computer.

Shouvik Mazumder is an active internet marketer for some time and has been busy keeping testing different marketing procedures. SFI Affiliate Program