RSS Syndication - Frequently Asked Questions for People who Publish in RSS



Questions Answers

What is RSS?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It’s a format that web sites and blogs can use to send updated headlines to you via services like My Yahoo!. My Yahoo! gathers the content you select from a variety of sources and displays it for you in one convenient location. Syndication means you don't have to visit each site individually to see what's new -- you simply scan headlines or brief article summaries and click to read the full text. That’s the "really simple" part. And it’s "really simple" for publishers to make their content accessible this way too.

Because RSS is a relatively new format, not all sites currently syndicate their content in this way. However, many notable sites already do offer RSS, and every day the RSS offering grows. For example, news sites such as the Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, and CNet's News.com use RSS to syndicate news headlines and summaries. Other sites use RSS to alert customers of new products or upcoming events.

How does Yahoo! support RSS?

Yahoo! believes RSS has tremendous potential to make it easier for people find, share, and subscribe to news and information on the Internet. The following Yahoo! sites and services all currently support RSS:

Stay tuned for more original Yahoo! content via RSS.

Why should I syndicate my content?

The question is, why wouldn't you? Headline syndication is a great way to build awareness of your content and your brand, drive traffic to your site, and serve your existing readership -- with relative ease and without expense. Invest a small amount of time to create your RSS file and you can essentially distribute hedlines to many sources with very minimal ongoing work and virtually no overhead.

Not only can syndication help build stronger relationships with existing readers who want to know as soon as new content gets posted, it will also help attract new readers. And now, with My Yahoo! introducing the RSS format to its broad audience, publishers and bloggers who choose to syndicate will gain access to the millions of readers who visit My Yahoo! every day.

How do I get started syndicating my site?

If you publish a blog or personal web site, consult the FAQs associated with your publishing software or hosting service to learn how to enable RSS on your platform. Many programs and services offer built-in tools to publish and update your RSS file easily.

If you are a webmaster or developer who manages a more robust or custom content management system, there are several tutorials that can help you get started. Here are just a few existing resources:

What versions of RSS does My Yahoo! support?

Although RSS is a relatively new XML-based format, several versions of RSS are available. To learn more about the history and differences, refer to XML.com. No matter which version you choose for syndication, My Yahoo! intends to support all existing versions. Currently we support the following: RSS 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, 1.0, and 2.0. In addition, we support Atom, an emerging syndication format.

How does My Yahoo! know when my content has been updated?

My Yahoo! has a self-scheduling agent that finds, categorizes, and periodically checks for updated RSS feeds. The agent adjusts the frequency of these periodic checks based on a history of how often content changes.

How much site traffic should I expect to see?

The agent that refreshes My Yahoo!'s RSS feeds begins checking for updates at regular intervals -- about once an hour -- and accelerates or decelerates the frequency of its visits based on the frequency of content updates. The minimum refresh interval is currently every 30 minutes, with a maximum of once every 24 hours. My Yahoo! maintains cached results so all users can view your most recent updates without overwhelming your site.

Note: The current refresh rates are established on a per-feed basis. Web sites that host content on behalf of multiple publishers may experience more traffic.

How do I make sure my latest post appears immediately?

When you update your site, you can also ensure My Yahoo! gets updated by using our API. Our system will schedule an immediate refresh of your site so that My Yahoo! has the most up-to-date version of the RSS feed. The two interfaces currently available are: REST and XML-RPC.

The REST interface is as follows:

URL: http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
Parameter(s): u=<site or feed url>
HTTP method: GET

Examples:

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping?u=http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping?u=http://site.example.com/blog
The XML-RPC interface is as follows:
RPC endpoint: http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
Method name: weblogUpdates.ping
Parameters:
  1. Name of site (string)
  2. URL of site or RSS feed (string)
Returns struct with two members:
  1. flerror (boolean) - which is true if an error occurred
  2. message (string) - which contains "OK" (if successful)
    or the error message
 Example request and response

How can people find and subscribe to my RSS feed?

In order for My Yahoo! users to find and add your RSS feed, we recommend doing the following:

How should I title my feed for My Yahoo!?

Many RSS publishers aim to optimize how their feed gets displayed in My Yahoo! search results. We recommend the following naming convention: "Provider: Sub-Topic." For example, a specific feed from Reuters may be titled, "Reuters: Business.” Using the same convention, a blog like Gizmodo may create sub-categories for various topics, such as "Gizmodo: Digital Cameras." That said, a publisher’s main feed does not need to include a “sub-topic” in the title. In addition to the title, the more descriptive the feed summary is, the more likely it will get discovered via search.

How do I prevent Yahoo! from using my RSS feed?

In addition to serving your existing audience, RSS syndication has the potential to drive traffic to your site much like keyword search. Although most sites do not choose to opt out of displaying their content on search results pages, it is conceivable that some publishers would discourage broad distribution of their headlines. If you do not wish to participate in RSS syndication via My Yahoo!, Yahoo! respects standard Internet protocols.

The name of the user-agent that refreshes RSS feeds for My Yahoo! is "YahooFeedSeeker." The full HTTP User-agent string that is presented will look like:

YahooFeedSeeker/1.0 (compatible; Mozilla 4.0; MSIE 5.5;
http://my.yahoo.com/s/publishers.html)

To indicate that you do not wish My Yahoo! to fetch your RSS feed, you may add the appropriate entry or entries to the robots.txt file for your site. For example, to exclude our agent from your entire site, you would include the following in robots.txt:

User-agent: YahooFeedSeeker/1.0 (compatible; Mozilla 4.0; MSIE 5.5;
http://my.yahoo.com/s/publishers.html) Disallow: /

If you want to exclude our agent from only a selected feed or feeds, here's an example you can use:

User-agent: YahooFeedSeeker
Disallow: /myblog/rss/myblog.xml
Disallow: /myotherblog/rss/myblog.xml

How can I promote availability of my RSS feed on My Yahoo!?

Millions of Internet users visit My Yahoo! every day. Once you’ve added your feed to My Yahoo! (see above), anyone can add it to their page. You can also make it easy for your readers to add your feed to their personal page by putting an "Add to My Yahoo!" button on your site or blog.

You've probably seen those orange "XML" buttons that typically point to a corresponding RSS file. This can be confusing to users who are new to RSS. So we've created a one-click process that lets My Yahoo! users instantly add content to their
page – without ever seeing that scary RSS file – or taking valuable space on your site to explain RSS.

Here’s the button:
The URL format is http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=[feedurl]

The actual HTML behind the button should actually look like this:

<a href="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=[your RSS URL here]">
  <img border=0 src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/my/addtomyyahoo4.gif">
</a>

For an easier way to customize an "Add-to-My-Yahoo!" button for your site, visit this page which will auto-generate the code.

How do I share feedback or report abuse?

Your comments and feedback are essential so we can continue to simplify and improve the RSS experience for My Yahoo! users. If you would like to report a bug or abuse, please let us know.


 
 

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