Ten Simple Steps to Create an RSS Feed

How do you get yourself to create an RSS feed in a most unchallenging way? Here’s your ten-point guide to create a method of syndicating content, namely — RSS (Rich Site Summary). Also called as a document, web feed or channel, an RSS feed is an XML file that contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. It helps in the concept of aggregating content in one central location or repository and makes it feasible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be channeled into special programs or filtered displays. Let’s go through the steps you need to take to RSS-enable your content.

Step One: Getting Ready with your Bits and Pieces

To start with, you would require

- A plain text editor, and

- A server

A basic RSS feed can be created with any ordinary text editor that saves your file as plain text. Formatting (of any kind), as a matter of fact, breaks the RSS file and therefore, using a plain text editor, such as Windows Notepad or NoteTab is highly recommended. You can safely use MS-Word, or WordPad as well, given that you save your file in plain text only. Linux users can do it well with Bluefish. (http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/)

The server is where your website is located and you load your files to. So, if you are able to upload your website homepage on your server, you should be able to do the same for your RSS file.

Step Two: Finding a Template

So what do you think might be the most undemanding way to create an RSS file? Copy someone else’s!! Yeah, that’s exactly what I would vote for. Since you are going to replace all the copied content sensibly enough with your own and the format of the file is licensed for free use, you can forget your fears about copying.

To help you, here is a short, simple template file that you can copy: Start now!

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”ISO-8859-1″ ?>

<rss version=”0.91″>

<channel>

<title>E-deuce </title>

<link> http://www.e-deuce.com/2008/06/.html </link>

<description> E-deuce - By Smriti Kaushik</description>

<language>en-us</language>

<image>

<title> E-deuce </title>

<url>http://www.e-deuce.com /images/rss.gif</url>

<link>http://www.e-deuce.com </link>

<width>80</width>

<height>86</height>

</image>

<item>

<title>Safin Returns </title>

<link>http://www.e-deuce.com </link>

<description>

The battle at Wimbledon has already begun and the first major upset has been scored as well. The end of world no. 3, Serbian superstar Novak Djokovic’s run to win the tournament yesterday brought back former world no.1, and my favorite Marat Safin (Russia) back into business.

</description>

</item>

<item>

<title>Safin-returns.ca</title>

<link>http://www.e-deuce.com </link>

<description>

Though it was sad to see Noel leave for home as he happens to be another favorite, I admit I was rooting for Safin to win ever since I saw the draw. My wish, however, isn’t just seeing him demolishing Novak’s chances but to go on and win the tournament.

</description>

</item>

</channel>

</rss>

(Stop now! You don’t have to copy at this line as well.)

Now paste this copied text into your plain text editor and save it as a new file in plain text format that indicates your website name. Use .rss as an extension so that people can tell what your file does by a look at the title.

Step Three: Defining Your Channel

By now, your wandering eyes might have observed a line near the top of your recently copied format that says <channel>. Subsequent to this tag, and above this tag, you need to brief in the information that describes your entire website. Replace the information that is currently loaded with that of your site among these four tags:

title: punch in the title of your site here

link: mention the URL to your website’s homepage

description: give a short description of your site here

language: your effort is saved here perchance, your site is in English. In that case, leave it the way it is. Fundamentally, it is here that you mention the language in which your site has been written.

Once you have created this part, you won’t have to worry about it ever again! It’s not that you cannot ever change it but why would you want to do so? Okay, do it if you require. Now that you have got the technique to create it, there’s no one stopping you…huh!

Step Four: Adding your Image

Your image provides your RSS feed a visual identity. However, adding image to your RSS file is not mandatory. You don’t really have to do so if you don’t want to. But, if you want to do so, this is how you should proceed:

Create a small image using any image editor of your choice. You can create a new image for being a part of your site or capture one using image editor and then reduce it to get the desired size. Any of these, PaintShop pro, Adobe Photoshop, Corel PhotoPaint, or Macromedia Firework, can do the job efficiently for you. Remember to reduce it to a very small image and uploading it to the same directory as your RSS file.

You will now need to type in the information about your image as you did about your channel. Replace the present information with that of yours between these tags:

title: the title of your image, usually the title of your website.( often used as an image ‘alt’ tag)

url: mention the url that indicates the location of your image on the web.

link: mention the url to which users goes to when they click on your image. Usually it is the same url as your channel link url

width: mention, in pixels, the width of your image

height: the height of your image, in pixels

Just as it was with defining your channel in the third step, you do not have to do this step again. Once completed, it is forever. What fun! Isn’t it? On to the fifth step now.

Step Five: Defining Your Links

It’s a long way you have treaded so far and I am sure the exercise must have made you think of something delicious to pamper your taste buds with. Well, I share the sentiments with you but we still are only halfway through so you will have to wait until we’re done.

You might want your visitors to read more than one article that is available on your site. For this reason, you can mention as many <item> tags as you need, to describe your articles. Since articles are bound to change with time giving way to newer information, you will have to change this part of your feed for further updating.

Each description for each article (two in the above example) starts and ends with the </item> tag and in between these tags there are three tags where you would need to put the information about the article.

title: the title of the article

link: the URL of the article

description: here, mention in brief what does your article talk about. A small summary of the article, it is advisable to use information about the author and the date in it.

Create an item for each article you have on your site and do remember to save your file.

Step Six: Evading Tricky Characters

As already mentioned in the beginning of the article, an RSS file is an XML file. In XML files, there are certain characters that are illegal and therefore it is important to avoid there usage which is to be done by insert a text string in their place. To help you, here is a list that would ensure enough safety.

& - replace all ‘&’ with: &

- Many URLs have ampersands in them.

- If a link element is http://www.mysite.com/index.cgi?n=4&p=5 then you must change it to http://www.mysite.com/index.cgi?n=4&p=5

” - change every full quote to “

- For example: Van yelled, “look!” becomes, Van yelled, “Fire!”

‘ - change every apostraphe to ‘

- For example: there’s the lake. becomes there’s the lake.

> - change every ‘greater than’ character to > - but DO NOT change them in the tags.

- For example, <description>I have > ten schillings </description> becomes <description>I have > ten schillings</description>

< - change every ‘less than’ character tag to < - but DO NOT change them in the tags

- For example: “<description>I have< two racquets</description> becomes <description>I have < two racquets</description>

Step Seven: Upload Your File

Under this step, you are required to upload your file to your web server in order to present yourself a working RSS feed. Though it can be placed anywhere you wish, it is better to put it in the same directory as your home page.

Step Eight: Validating Your RSS File

Go to an RSS validator on the web and enter the complete URL of your RSS file into the form. Click the button and see if there is any error, the validator informs you of. If there is any, please correct it and try again. If there is not, the validator will validate your file.

Some validators you can use:

http://aggregator.userland.com/validator

http://feeds.archive.org/Fvalidator/

Step Nine: Advertising Your Feed

Advertising is the best way to inform the world about your RSS feed. Start by adding an XML button to your home page. Upload the image of an XML button to your website. Then place the image, along with a link, on your home page. For example, place the following code on your home page:

<a href=”http://www.wellsaid.com/wellsaid.rss“><=img src=”xml.gif” width=36 height=14 alt=”RSS feed for this site” border=0></a>

Second, submit your site’s RSS feed URL to various aggregators. This way they will start checking your RSS feed for updates.

Some aggregators you can use:

Daypop: http://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm

Syndic8: http://www.syndic8.com/suggest.php?Mode=data

Step Ten: Reward of your Hard Work

This is the last and most important step of your ten-point guide. Now that you have achieved your goal with your hard work, you well deserve all the good stuff you sorely wanted to gorge on all this while. So, pat yourself on the back and treat yourself lavishly for now you have a working RSS feed.

Enjoy, it’s time to Eat, Drink and be Merry!

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