| Answers |
| What is RSS? |
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| RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It's a format that web sites and blogs use to syndicate content via news aggregation tools and services like My Yahoo!. Syndication benefits users -- instead of visiting multiple web sites to see what's new, they can simply scan headlines or brief article summaries and click to read the full text. "Really simple" refers to how easy it is for publishers to make their content available to readers in this format. |
| Because RSS is relatively new on the Net, not all sites syndicate their content today. 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 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. |
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| How does Yahoo! support RSS? |
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| Yahoo! believes RSS has tremendous potential to make it easier for people find, share, and subscribe to news and information on the Internet. We created excitement in the RSS community when Yahoo! News started syndication in August 2003. Anyone who agrees to our Terms of Service can now distribute Yahoo! News headlines or read them in an RSS newsreader. |
| Yahoo! also uses RSS to syndicate Ask Yahoo!, a daily question and answer column, and the Yahoo! Buzz Index, which highlights top searches and movers in a variety of categories. Stay tuned for more original Yahoo! content via RSS. |
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| Why should I syndicate my content? |
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| 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 headlines 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. |
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| How do I get started syndicating my site? |
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| If you publish a weblog (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:
O'Reilly's RSS DevCenter: http://www.oreillynet.com/topics/rss/getting_started
Lockergnome's RSS Resource: http://rss.lockergnome.com/resources/
RSS Tutorial: http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/
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| There are different versions of RSS -- which version does My Yahoo! support? |
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| 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. |
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| How does My Yahoo! know when my content has been updated? |
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| 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. |
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| How much site traffic should I expect to see? |
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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.
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| How do I make sure my latest post appears immediately? |
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| 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
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The XML-RPC interface is as follows:
RPC endpoint: http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
Method name: weblogUpdates.ping
Parameter(s): 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
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| I want people to find my blog/web site even if they don't know the exact URL -- how can I make sure they find it? |
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| As part of making it easy to find and add RSS headlines to My Yahoo!, we are creating an RSS directory. To date, this directory includes thousands of the most popular blogs and web sites that publish RSS feeds, but it is by no means exhaustive. This is where we need your help during this public beta stage. |
| If you publish a blog or web site and syndicate in RSS, the best way to make sure people can find it is to add the feed to your own My Yahoo! page. Each time you add a feed to My Yahoo!, the RSS directory is automatically updated. Once the feed in the directory anyone can discover it via the RSS search function. |
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| How do I prevent Yahoo! from using my RSS feed? |
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| 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. Here's how to opt out: |
To block all robots from the entire site or specific feed URLs, add the following to robots.txt:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
For more about robots.txt, visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html.
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:
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:
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
If you have implemented the above steps and still require assistance excluding your RSS feed from My Yahoo!, please let us know.
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| How can I let the world know that my site is syndicated on My Yahoo!? |
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| Millions of Internet users already visit My Yahoo! every day -- and now you too can promote the fact that your content is available there as well. Make it easy for your readers to add your headlines to My Yahoo! by putting a simple "Add to My Yahoo!" button on your site. |
You've probably seen those small, orange "XML" buttons ( ) on sites or blogs that offer RSS (you might even have one on your site). Typically, they point to the corresponding RSS file, which can be confusing if you're new to RSS or setting up a newsreader for the first time. So, we've created a button that lets My Yahoo! users instantly add content to My Yahoo! -- without ever seeing that RSS file -- or taking valuable space on your web page to explain RSS to the new user. |
Instead, just choose one of the buttons below and decide where to put it.
 Your site name here
 [No text necessary]
The URL format is http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=[feedurl]
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The HTML for the narrow button will actually look like:
<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/addtomyyahoo.gif">
</a>
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The HTML for the wide button will actually look like:
<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/addtomyyahoo2.gif">
</a>
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For an easier way to customize an "Add-to-My-Yahoo!" button for your site,
visit this page which will
auto-generate the code for you.
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| How do I share feedback or report abuse? |
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| Your comments and feedback are essential to the beta process 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. |
