Top 10 RSS Do's and Don'ts

RSS is not quite a household word, but technically astute individuals are adopting the use of RSS feeds at an alarming rate. If you are interested in jumping on the bandwagon, but not quite sure of where to start, consider following these simple RSS feed tips to maximize feed compatibility and make your feed stand out from the crowd.

RSS DO's

1. Titles and Descriptions.
Always include meaningful keywords in your RSS feed's Channel title and description. Many readers will view or search for topic specific RSS feeds using keywords or keyword phrases. If you have descriptive keywords in your RSS feed's title and description the feed is more likely to be located and subscribed to by interested parties.

2. GUID Format.
Always include a GUID with each feed item. The GUID is a globally unique identifier. Each post should use a different GUID. The GUID will in some cases assist RSS news readers and aggregation software in determining when new content has been added to the RSS feed or when existing content in an RSS feed has been modified. If you do not use GUID's, the software used to aggregate the feeds may have difficulty detecting changes to feed items or the software may not always recognize new content.

3. Publish Dates.
Always include a publish date on feed items. The publish date should be used even if the content is timeless. The Publish Date will help readers determine that status of the content contained in the feed item.

RSS DON'Ts

1. Plagiarize.
Do not plagiarize content in your RSS feed, there is little more to be said. Written words are considered protected in most countries. Posting someone else's work and taking credit for their words is wrong and will damage your reputation as a credible source.

2. Splog.
Do not create splogs by automating feed creation. Splogs just clutter the search engines and directories and make it difficult to locate RSS feeds with meaningful content.

3. Violate Copyrights.
Do not violate copyrights by republishing an RSS feeds contents. If you quote content from another RSS feed, credit the source and provide and link to the original source of the content. As a rule of thumb, editorial content should exceed the length of the quoted material in the post.