Add an RSS feed to your blog

A couple of years ago, if you wanted to create an RSS feed for a blog, you had to manually create a structured XML document along these lines:

<feed>
Title (of the blog in this case)
Description
Editor's email address
etc.
   <entry>
   Title of post 1
   Description
   Date published
   URL
   etc.
   </entry>

   <entry>
   Title of post 2
   Description
   Date published
   URL
   etc.
   </entry>
...
</feed>

The initial lines described the blog. They were followed by a series of entries describing each blog post. It was a pretty clear format, but it was easy to make a mistake and you had to add a new item when you added a post to your blog.

Since many bloggers wanted RSS feeds, the programmers of the Blogger service added the capability to create the feed automatically and update it whenever a new item is posted. The feed URL will be:

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

If you link to that address on your blog, readers will be able to subscribe.

You can, if you wish, still supply your own RSS file. If you do so, you would use that URL instead.

There are also Internet services which will generate RSS feeds for your blog. Feedburner.com is one of the oldest and largest. If you establish an account at Feedburner, and have them create the feed, they will also keep track of statistics like the number of subscribers. Again, if you use a service to generate your feed, you would use its URL in your blog.

You can see a portion of the RSS feed for our class blog here.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on unofficial pages of California State University, Dominguez Hills faculty, staff or students are strictly those of the page authors. The content of these pages has not been reviewed or approved by California State University, Dominguez Hills.