While the in-browser feed readers are convenient they are still quite rudimentary. You should consider switching to a full-fledged feed aggregator for more features and increased usability. There are many feed readers to choose from, each have different levels of complexity and features. There are essentially two types: web-based and application-based. With a web-based aggregator you can check your feeds from any computer but this comes at the cost of limited functionality and speed. With application-based feed readers you get excellent features and speed but lack mobility. You dont have to decide just yet, Ill go over configuring both types.

First off, well start with a web-based feed reader. The most best and popular online feed reader, in my opinion, is Bloglines. Sign up for an account and click My Feeds on the top left. Test out Bloglines by adding a few feeds. When you setup Bloglines for the first time, it will suggest a few feeds to subscribe to. I usually do not accept them and just add my own. Below My Feeds should be a Add link that you will click.

You will be on a subscribe page now. If you found the feed on the website you can paste that in here. However, Bloglines has a feature where you can just type in the URL of the website and it will search for feeds. It may find several feeds and other times it will not find any.

To avoid confusion about which feed to use, I suggest using the one shown on the website as that is the one they want you to use. Sometimes they will place a link to their FeedBurner feed and forget to remove the old feed. Either way, whether you enter a feed or URL, click Subscribe and use the default options. Do this several times with some more feeds and you will have setup Bloglines. Everytime you login you can click My Feeds and instantly find out how many of your feeds have new posts you have not read yet. Unread feeds will be bolded and have the number of new stories in parentheses. Bloglines provides a simple way to read RSS feeds from anywhere, but is not the fastest and most feature-rich solution.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. It is a approach to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and from time to time content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading.
What problem does RSS solve?

A good number people are interested in many websites whose content changes on an random schedule. Examples of such websites are news sites, community and religious organization information pages, product information pages, medical websites, and weblogs. Repeatedly checking every one website to see if there is any new content can be very tedious.

Email notification of changes was an early solution to this problem. Unfortunately, when you receive email notifications from several websites they are usually disorganized and can get overwhelming, and are often mistaken for spam.

RSS is a better approach to be notified of new and changed content. Notifications of changes to several websites are handled easily, and the results are presented to you well organized and distinct from email.
How does RSS work?

RSS works by having the website author keep a list of notifications on their website in a standard way. This list of notifications is called an “RSS Feed”. People who are interested in finding out the latest headlines or changes can check this list. Special computer programs called “RSS aggregators” have been developed that repeatedly access the RSS feeds of websites you care about on your behalf and organize the results for you. (RSS feeds and aggregators are and from time to time called “RSS Channels” and “RSS Readers”.)

Producing an RSS feed is very simple and hundreds of thousands of websites now provide this feature, including major news organizations like the New York Times, the BBC, and Reuters, as well as many weblogs.
What information does RSS provide?

RSS provides very essential information to do its notification. It is made up of a list of items presented in order from newest to oldest. every one item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the genuine information being described. On occasion this description is the full information you want to read (such as the content of a weblog post) and from time to time it is just a summary.

RSS aggregator programs

Think of an RSS aggregator as just a web browser for RSS content. RSS aggregators repeatedly check a series of RSS feeds for new items on an ongoing basis, making it is possible to keep track of changes to several websites without needing to tediously read and re-read every one of the websites yourself. They detect the additions and present them all together to you in a solid and useful manner. If the title and description of an item are of interest, the link can be used to quickly bring the related web page up for reading.

How do I find out if a website has an RSS feed?

It is getting more and more common for websites to have RSS feeds. They usually indicate the existence of the feed on the home page or main news page with a link to “RSS”, or from time to time by displaying an orange button with the letters “XML” or “RSS”. RSS feeds are and often found via a “Syndicate This” link. Text “RSS” links from time to time (there are lots of variations) point to a web page explaining the nature of the RSS feeds provided and how to find them. The buttons are often linked directly to the RSS feed file itself.

Once you know the URL of an RSS feed, you can provide that address to an RSS aggregator program and have the aggregator monitor the feed for you. Various RSS aggregators come preconfigured with a list to choose from of RSS feed URLs for popular news websites.
How is the RSS feed file produced?

Unless you are maintaining a website or want to create your own RSS feed for some other purpose, how the RSS feed is produced should not be of concern and you may skip this section.

The special XML-format file that makes up an RSS feed is usually created in one of a variety of ways.

A good number large news websites and nearly all weblogs are maintained using special “content management” programs. Authors add their stories and postings to the website by interacting with those programs and and use the program’s “publish” facility to create the HTML files that make up the website. Those programs often and can update the RSS feed XML file at the same time, adding an item referring to the new story or post, and removing less recent items. Blog creation tools like Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, and Radio repeatedly create feeds.

Websites that are produced in a more custom manner, such as with Macromedia Dreamweaver or a simple text editor, usually do not repeatedly create RSS feeds. Authors of such websites either keep the XML files by hand, just as they do the website itself, or use a tool such as Software Garden, Inc.’s ListGarden program to keep it. There are and services that from time to time read requested websites themselves and try to repeatedly determine changes (this is nearly all reliable for websites with a somewhat regular news-like format), or that let you create RSS feed XML files that are hosted by that service provider.

how can i make money with rss?

RSS feeds seem to be the breakout knowledge for the time. With additional users turning to them for driving traffic to their web site, its no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake. A alert editing of your RSS feed possibly will make the difference between being classified as sincere content or RSS spam.

RSS search engines are just beginning to pick up steam. As new RSS feeds become searchable, the quantity of visitors will multiply and spam is surely to follow. It is an adverse side effect of free interaction. While RSS users can typically unsubscribe to feeds they deem as spam, browsing with keywords clothed in an RSS search engine is where the hindrance arises.

RSS spam largely consists of three main types generally often found in the RSS search engines. The initial type is keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing involves filling every RSS feed article with high-value keywords for a detailed topic. The articles are not intended for human visitors, but as an alternative for search engine robots to point traffic to a target web place. This RSS spam method is nothing more than an adaptation of the conventional keyword-stuffed web page, often banned by main search engines.

The next type involves RSS feed link farms. These RSS articles often contain very insignificant content, if any, other than a plain keyword. Their most important attraction is the feed title. Clicking the feed title takes the user to a blog containing tens or hundreds of other blogs and RSS feeds, every one directing to additional links inside the farm. The goal of this type of RSS spam is to trick the user into clicking advertisements or else directing them to a product web site.

The third type is the innovation of fake RSS feeds. These appear like legitimate, but often duplicated, article content. Whether they provide quantity or not is certainly debatable. These feeds are generally shaped in bulk, using automated scripts, and appear like in nature to the link farms. By attracting the users to seemingly valuable content, they wish to add advertisement clicks or product web site traffic.

Your RSS feed might happen to fall into one of these three categories. While you might at present be experiencing increased traffic from the RSS search engines, these directories are working on filtering out the RSS spam techniques. However, you can still take benefit of RSS feeds and their power by following an RSS-friendly guideline.

Refrain from using automated scripts to create online content used by your RSS feeds. As a substitute, compose your own original opinion, product descriptions, and reviews. It takes a little additional time, but the search engines will appreciate this content much more highly, your visitors will recognize the value of the unique content, and the subscription count to your RSS feed will grow. It is also crucial to keep your feed updated with changing content as opposed to using a static feed, which remains the same. Search engines respect dynamic feeds and will likely rank you higher as a consequence.

At hand are tools and services existing, which aid in keeping an RSS feed updated with your changing content. Such services include FeedFire for converting your web site content to a periodically updated RSS feed or software such as FeedForAll for creating and editing RSS feeds.

A thriving RSS feed is very much the same as a doing well web page. It may perhaps take a little more time to digitize your judgment, but the end conclusion is well worth the effort. By avoiding the tricks in RSS feed spam, you can help make the difference in quality of feeds and enjoyment in your readers.

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