What Is RSS?

It's relatively simple to create RSS Feeds if you know HTML. The structure of RSS uses the same structure as how HTML does, separating items using the tags.

Each RSS feed require you to have:

1. An XML Declaration
2. A Channel
3. Feed information
4. Items
• Title
• Description
• Link

Each of the points mentioned above will be covered in greater detail in the Step by Step creation guide below. Do take note that the above structure is the minimum, as you can add in any custom tags to describe your feeds in greater detail.

Regardless of how complex your RSS will be, it will have to include at least one item. Items basically can be a number of things, including webpages, websites, products or any other things which you can fit within the code.

A typical structure of a RSS might looks something like below. Click the link below to view RSS 2.0 Feed Sample
Opens up in a Popup Window

Step by Step RSS creation process
Each process with detailed description

A typical RSS structure is provided below with numbers arranged in order on the right side on each line. Click on the numbers to jump to the description of the particular line of code.

Do take note that this is a very simple RSS feed structure, used solely to help out for this example. It can be very much more complex than this with more items and information. You can also apply CSS to your XML to make it more readable.

Introduction
Choosing your RSS version

Reports by many giant RSS syndicators indicate that RSS 0.91 is the most popular used version today. Having known that RSS 2.0 is the latest version, it's totally safe to use 2.0 as it's totally compatible with RSS 0.91.

RSS in the other hand, is well known to be "complicated" to be used. Regardless, its complicated situation has its own advantages, providing some additional special capabilities. To know more of this capabilities, click here.

Conclusion : Use whichever you see fit.

• About 50 % of all RSS feeds use RSS 0.91
• About 25 % use RSS 1.0
• The last 25 % is split between RSS 0.9x versions and RSS 2.0
• Source : w3schools.com

Step 01 : XML Declaration
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Since RSS 2.0 must validate as XML, the first line in your rss feed must be the XML declaration. The encoding is optional but recommended. If your using something other than UTF-8 be sure to change the above line.

Back to the RSS Feed Structure

Step 02 : RSS Channel
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>

In this step we need to open up the rss tag, and the channel tag, all of your feed content goes inside these tags.

Back to the RSS Feed Structure

Step 03 : Feed Information
<title>Example Feed</title>
<description>Insert witty or insightful remark here</description>
<link>http://example.com/</link>
<lastBuildDate>Sat, 13 Dec 2003 18:30:02 GMT</lastBuildDate>

Next you place information about your RSS feed such as the title of it, the description, and a link to the the site. The lastBuildDate should be the date and time that the feed was last changed. Dates in RSS feeds should comply to RFC 822. In CFML the DateFormat mask would be ddd, dd mmm yyyy and the TimeFormat would be HH:mm:ss. Dates should be offset to GMT. The lastBuildDate tag is not required but is highly recommended.

Back to the RSS Feed Structure

Step 04 : Items
<item>
<title>Your Title Here</title>
<link>http://example.com/2007/07/07/rss</link>
<description>Some description text.</description>
</item>

Next we enumerate over each RSS item, each item has a title, link, and description, publication date, and guid.

Back to the RSS Feed Structure

Step 05 : Close All Tags
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

Make sure you close all your tags or you'll have problems with your feeds. However if you have a relatively large feeds, you can always use a feed validator to check it out for you.

Back to the RSS Feed Structure

Validating your feeds
Ensure your feed is proper and readable

It's always a good practive to always validate your RSS feed after manually creating it. You can find some of the popular and well known places for you to do this below:

• feedvalidator.org
• rss.scripting.com - RSS validator
• www.validome.org - RSS and ATOM validator
• www.redland.opensource.ac.uk - RSS 1.0 Validator
• www.ldodds.com - RSS 1.0 Validator

Automating your RSS creation process
Not a big fan of manual work? Automate it

It's an undeniable fact that creating RSS feeds manually from scratch is indeed a tiresome activity, especially if you're looking at items in the range of thousands or millions. There are numerous utilities, softwares and applications out there, both free and commercial with the ultimate goal of cutting down that huge workload.

1. Feedforall (Commercial)
2. Rss Builder (Open Source)
3. RSS Edit (Commercial)
4. RSS Writer (Freeware)
5. Web Based RSS Editor (Free Script)
6. FeedSpring (Freeware)
7. ListGarden (Freeware)

1. Webreference.com
2. IceRocket RSS Builder (Best Overall)
3. PonyFish
4. Feedity (Quick & Easy)
5. RSSPad (Best Overall)
6. RSSpect
7. FeedYes
8. FeedBurner
9. IrisFeed (Quick & Easy)
10. MySiteFeed (Requires registration)
11. Podcast Feed Generator (Free)
12. ClickCaster Podcast (Free & Paid)

How to create rss Feeds using popular softwares like dreamweaver:
Click here to know more

Creating Autodiscovery code

Autodiscovery code is a simple code within your HTML code which simple says that "Hey I have a RSS Feed in my website, do you want to subscribe to it?" Not all browsers have the feature to discover your RSS feed automatically, but with all the freely available plugins for different browsers, this option is possible.

Don't know how to create your own Auto Discovery code? Click here to have it automatically generated for you. Once it's generated, make sure to copy and paste it within the <head></head> section of your HTML code.

A typical Auto Discovery code looks something like this:

RSS Creation in Today's World
100% Automation

In today's world of fast technology advancement, you don't really need to do any work (both manual and semi-automated) to just create your own RSS feeds. Online applications today are developed with a concept that RSS feed is created on the fly. Everything new you post which gets into your website, a new updated RSS feed will be automatically created for you.

This applies to most blogging system or even portals / CMS (Content Management Systems) that you see today. Even forums have their own RSS feeds, automatically generated everytime a user posts. Everywhere you go these days, there'll always be the orange or blue icon giving you the option to subscribe to the available feed. Don't be surprised that even blog's comments are now included in the feeds now.

To the scripts / systems which are still not playing the field together, there will always be plugins available to include an option of providing RSS Feeds for your visitors.

Click here to go to the next section : RSS Icons and Buttons

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