Using RSS in Your Web Pages

Wikipedia defines RSS as Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

Programs known as feed readers or aggregators can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that they find. It is common to find web feeds on major websites and many smaller ones. Some websites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom.

On Web pages, web feeds (RSS or Atom) are typically linked with the word "Subscribe", an orange rectangle, , or with the letters or . Many news aggregators such as My Yahoo![1] publish subscription buttons for use on Web pages to simplify the process of adding news feeds.

What Can I do with RSS?

RSS feeds by themselves don’t do much. If you view one in most browsers, you’ll see the raw XML, which is roughly human-readable, but intended for computer programs. There are a number of applications for RSS feeds; the most popular ones are:

• displaying headlines on other websites
• search engines
• aggregating RSS feeds from multiple websites

So now web designers and developers alike have a new tool for helping to populate their clients websites with useful and timely information. Uses for RSS, XML specific content driven data may include:

• RSS, XML Medical feeds for doctors, nursing, dentists and other medically related websites
• RSS, XML Engineering feeds for energy, technical, engineering products and electrical websites
• RSS, XML Financial Feeds for Real Estate, Financial Planning, Mortgage and Banking web sites.
• RSS, XML News feeds for directory, entertainment, Blogs, associations, educational and training websites.

It’s always best to have original HTML text content in your website for search engine purposes, but RSS, XML feeds compliment your existing content. These feeds are usually updated every day which gives you fresh, changing dynamic content on your website.

Related RSS Links, Websites and Articles

All About RSS || Fagan Finder
An explanation of syndication via RSS and Atom, using it, news aggregators, ... This page is about using RSS and Atom, from a non-technical standpoint.

What Is RSS? RSS Explained - www.WhatIsRSS.com
Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS. RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web.

Using RSS News Feeds - Webreference.com
In this Mother of Perl tutorial, we will write a short Perl script that retrieves an XML RSS file from the Web or local file system and converts it to HTML.

Set Up a Simple Syndication Feed Using RSS
You can set up outbound syndication for your Website and expose your content to the world in one afternoon using an XML technology called RSS.

How to: Read RSS feeds - Internet
There are two main types of RSS reader. Standalone applications are simply programs that process RSS feeds for you.

RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters

RSS/RDF/ATOM to JavaScript Converter
Beta Testing: RSS/RDF/ATOM Converter v4.0
Now with Improved Atom Support!
Beta Testing: RSS/RDF/ATOM to JavaScript Scroller 1.0

Contributing Author:
Michael Fagan of faganfinder.com

About the Author
Rick Vidallon is President of Visionefx, a Web design company based in Virginia Beach, Va. They provide services to national companies as well as small to medium businesses throughout the United States.
Rick can be reached at (757) 619-6456 or rick@visionefx.net.