How To Use RSS Correctly

Home
>
Blogging, RSS & Feeds
>
How To Use RSS Correctly

How To Use RSS Correctly

There is no doubt in my mind that RSS is here to stay. RSS is a simple and effective means of communicating your message to your visitors without invading their privacy or spamming them. It has many benefits over email and there have been many reports of the death of email due to the continual rise of mass spamming and non delivery due to spam filters. By no means is email dead, it is still the best personal communication method besides picking up the phone. It's just that RSS does some things much better than email.

I have been informing and educating webmasters about RSS since I first discovered the potential of this medium. A whole industry has now grown up around RSS and now there are directories that specialise in listing RSS feeds and tools to help you create RSS feeds. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon and everybody seems to have their own opinions about how RSS should be used. Even Google has joined in to offer adsense in RSS feeds.

The problem I see is that improper use of RSS may well send RSS the way of email. Currently it seems that if you publish an RSS feed the contents of that feed seem to be considered public domain. The reasons for this is, I believe, to do with the way content is packaged in RSS, this makes the content easy to syndicate. It is not that difficult to create a script or desktop application to strip out the content of RSS feeds and publish them on someone else's website. There is even a few applications being sold for just this purpose.

This has lead to what I consider improper use of RSS feeds to spam the search engines, this seems to be aimed particularly at Google. Although not yet widespread yet many webmasters are cottoning on to the fact that they can get easy content for their websites without putting in much effort. Although off hand this may not seem detrimental to you, consider the long term consequences. Your feed copied hundreds if not thousands of times and no back links to your site as the links have been stripped. What if Google decides to penalise due to duplicate content, the consequences could be that your site is dropped from Googles listings.

After considering such a scenario I have come up with a few suggestions. Firstly only publish a teaser paragraph in your feed that links back to the main article. Although some may disagree with me as they prefer the full article in the feed, I truly believe RSS is better suited to notification type messages. Secondly you can publish some terms in your feed which states that the contents are personal use only and you should be contacted for syndication rights. While this will not stop those determined to copy the content of your RSS feed it will help raise awareness of the issue.

Allan is the webmaster at NewsNiche an RSS resource for webmasters. Learn how to use RSS to attract and retain visitors to your site.

In The News:

Live blog: Coyotes, Kings tied 1-1 in Game 5
Tucson Citizen
22, 2012, under USA TODAY News We're live-blogging Game 5 of the Western Conference. The Los Angeles Kings, visiting the Phoenix Coyotes, can clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup Finals with a win. 9:43: Coyotes back on the power play.

and more »

5 Common SMB Online Marketing Optimization Issues Solved: Q&A with Lee Odden
Search Engine Watch
Ongoing Engagement Means You'll Never Run Out of Things to Talk (or Write) About We asked Odden what advice he has for entrepreneurs who have shied away from blogging and/or social because they don't feel they can produce enough contenton a regular ...

and more »

Live blog: Devils lead Rangers 3-1 in Game 4
Tucson Citizen
21, 2012, under USA TODAY News NEWARK – We're live blogging Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final. The New York Rangers lead the New Jersey Devils 2-1 in the best-of-seven series: 10:34: Rangers pull Henrik Lundqvist with more than two minutes left.

and more »

Bloglovin, a prettier take on RSS and Tumblr, gets Betaworks investment
GigaOM
Now, the company said it has about 1.4 million members worldwide and 2.4 million monthly unique visitors, who use the site to follow blogs in a range of areas, from fashion and food to photography and interior design. Like an RSS reader, ...

and more »

12 Reasons Why Blogging Is The #1 B2B Marketing Tactic
Business 2 Community (blog)
What is a 'Blog'? Shorthand for “Weblog,” a blog offers an easy way to present brief chunks of frequently refreshed Web content. Backed with easy-to-use technologies for syndication (eg, RSS), comments and trackbacks, blogs are often the blazing ...

and more »

Twitter applies greater precision to 'Who to Follow' feature
Red Rocket Media News
If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. Micro-blogging service Twitter is tweaking its 'Who to Follow' feature, as not everyone is interested in “Justin Bieber, FC Barcelona or Kim Kardashian.

and more »

Blog To Get More Patients? IDA's New Dental Marketing Websites Can Showcase ...
San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
New websites from Internet Dental Alliance, Inc. (IDA) let doctors easily embed their blogs into their IDA New Patient Portals to automatically generate fresh content and new patient leads. IDA's Portals let doctor's integrate the RSS feeds from their ...

and more »

How to Get Bloggers to help in Your Press Release Distribution
PR Newswire (press release)
In Vision Smart News online press release distribution system if the press release is crafted well it will help reach various blogs by way of RSS feeds. To learn more about a How to Get Bloggers to help in Your Press Release Distribution contact Qamar ...

and more »

COMMENTARY: Does "The Stage Door" need a Facebook page? My thoughts.
Naples Daily News (blog)
But how do you feel about getting anywhere from 50-90% of the blog content via Facebook? 4. This is the big one. Does anyone else have concerns about me building an audience for and inside Facebook - a platform controlled by someone else?

and more »

Toronto Star
Aveda Born to Style hairstyling contest crowns two winners
Toronto Star
The audience of about 150 — half of which was comprised of family and hair folk, the other half of beauty and fashion bloggers — was especially excited. Susan Chong, who created the attendee list for the event, focused on the online world.

Google News