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Things to Consider When Importing RSS
Friday, October 21, 2005 Posted: 16:45 PM (EST)
Hair Say Headlines is less than one year old but it has provided some rather interesting insights into the world of RSS and XML. Now that we have completed some critical site updates I thought I would take a few moments and share some of my experiences with incoming RSS feeds.
Hair Say Headlines includes all of the normal stuff that you would see in the source of a web page, header, stylesheets and body, but it also includes sections of php code that parse each incoming XML source and displays the content of that source onto the page. Problems begin to arise from that point on because not all XML files are created equal by their makers, so to speak.
View a typical XML file
The first thing to consider when thinking about inserting RSS feeds into your site is the reliability of the source. If that source is a steady - eddie and is up 99.99% of the time then you won't have any problems. However, if that source is residing on someone's DSL connected personal server (or worse) and if their internet connection drops, then so will your page that displays the incoming RSS. In short, if one RSS feed goes then everything below that parse statement will not load into the browser. For this reason I seek out relevant feeds that are reliable, and this usually means importing feeds from bigger names like NY Times Fashion and CNN and Yahoo! Health.
We don't want to rely on feeds that will have a negative repercussion on the presentation and reliability of our content. And this includes the content of each item within each feed. Choose feeds that are relevant to your site and which serve the interests of your visitors.
Equally important is the content of each item within each XML source. A brief and descriptive introduction for each item is much easier for readers to scan on the web page than is a paragraph of long-windedness. I look for feeds that use short, well written intros for each item.
Ocassionally those who write the XML will slip up and paste HTML markup into the description statement (yes, I done it and I raise my hand). Markup such as bold <b> and italics <em> should not be inserted into the content of an item because most parsers will simply interpret everything as <b>text</b>.
Finally, I look for feeds that add at least one new item each week. New items should be inserted at the top of the XML file because items are read from top to bottom, and webpage parsers can be set to display any number of items per feed. The result will be that new items get inserted at the top of the viewing area and dated items will be dropped in chronological order.
Ron Poole is the managing editor of Hair Say Headlines and Hair Say Newsroom.
Copyright 2005 Beauty By Us Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Hair Say Newsroom : RSS Feed Item16 _ Oct 21/05
