Author:Sharon Housley
You think that you have mastered the art of RSS, but how much do you really know? Take the RSS quiz to test your knowledge of RSS.
Question: If something is in an RSS feed, it is perfectly fine to reproduce the
contents of the feed. I mean after all RSS means really simple syndication,
right?
Answer: No, that is not true. Regardless of whether content is in a feed or not,
the original creator of the content has the right to restrict its use. While
most people do feel that if content is in an RSS feed, it is available for
syndication--that is not always the case. Various groups have made efforts to
add namespaces which expand the tags used in RSS, to define whether the content
is available for syndication. The two most notable namespaces that detail
permissions are the Creative Commons extension and the Bloglines' Access
extension. These two extensions are not yet widely supported so it is always
best to check the terms of service associated with the feed or website to
determine if the feed is available for syndication.
Question: RSS is only for blogs right? All blogs have RSS feeds right?
Answer: No, and No! While blogs may have helped increase the popularity of RSS
feeds, RSS feeds are not specific to blogs. RSS feeds can be used for any type
of content not just blogs. In fact, there are probably more RSS feeds available
for non-blogs than there are feeds for blogs. Publishers have used RSS feeds for
articles, press releases, discounts, podcasts, calendars, alerts and the list
goes on and on.
Question: When I add a new item to the feed, do I simply edit the old .rss file
or do I create a new one?
Answer: If you are adding content related to the theme of the original RSS feed,
you should always expand your existing RSS feed rather than creating a new feed.
Do not edit any of the RSS feed's existing items, simply add a new item to the
existing RSS feed.
Question: Can RSS Feeds be set up for private list subscribers and what kind of
security is available for RSS feeds to support a private feed?
Answer: Yes, while there are no provisions in the RSS 2.0 specification for
passwords or protecting files, you can use any security mechanism available on
the http server to protect the entire RSS feed. The security options are
dependent on the capabilities of your web server.
Question: What is a feed reader?
Answer: A feed reader can also be referred to a news aggregator. RSS feed
readers come in all shapes and sizes and are just tools that make it easy for
users to view the contents or headlines of the RSS feeds they subscribe to. Feed
readers can be desktop applications, or web applications. Desktop readers are
programs that behave similar to an email client, you add new feeds and when the
RSS feeds you subscribe to are updated new items appear in the RSS reader. The
web aggregators are websites that aggregate all of your favorite feeds, the web
page dynamically updates as new items are added to the feeds you subscribe to.
Many email applications now also include the ability to monitor RSS feeds. As
the popularity of RSS increases, the options to read and monitor feeds is
expanding.
Question: Can you block a search engine from accessing a feed?
Answer: You can use a robots.txt to indicate to search engines that specific RSS
feeds should not be indexed. Most search engines will observe the contents of a
properly formatted robots.txt file.
Question: What is a GUID?
Answer: A GUID is a globally unique identifier. The RSS specification strongly
suggests that each RSS feed item have a unique GUID. If you are creating feeds,
a GUID is important because GUIDs are often used by feed readers and aggregators
to determine if a feed item is new or simply an existing item that has been
updated. Each item in the RSS feed should have a different GUID.
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. Interested in
additional RSS FAQs visit the RSS Knowledgebase
http://www.feedforall.com/knowledgebase.htm or subscribe to the RSS
knowledgebase feed
http://www.feedforall.com/knowledgebase.php
Article Source:
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