What is RSS?

RSS is short for "Really Simple Syndication". It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and your sales content to a wide number of people and also to alert search engines to new content. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices foreasy reading. Lots of people subscribe to these 'Rss feed readers'and add and view their favorite feeds daily on personal setting homepages e.g. My Yahoo , My google. Click here on an rss feed to see how they look.
Click to view an RSS
feed.  http://www.work-from-home-ic.com/rss.xml

If you have a blog, or surf the net and looking at any blog, you will often see a small orange button marked rss. Click on this feed to view it. Save the feed url and add it to your My Yahoo and see that it will cause Yahoo to generate
Headlines and snippets from the blog on your home page-every time the blog updates-you will automatically see that blogs latest headlines.


What is so good about RSS?

Most people are interested in lots websites whose content changes on an unpredictable, undetermined and frequently scale or schedule.
Examples of such websites:are news sites, community and religious organization information pages, product information pages, and 'blogs.
Your blog , full of your sales point material and keywords can make very good use of rss feeds!

Email notification of changes are a solution to this problem. Unfortunately, when you receive email notifications from multiple websites they are usually disorganized and can get overwhelming, and are often mistaken for spam. RSS is the solution!

RSS notification are different, as surfers 'opt in' and join your blog to receive these notifications just by adding your feed to their favourite rss reader.
RSS is a better way to be notified of new and changed content for the surfer. Notifications of changes to multiple websites are handled easily, and the results are presented to you well organized and distinct from email or, homepage as favourites or RSS feedreaders.Try opening your self a My google homepage, you will see that you have the option to add RSS feeds from any
site that you choose. Just the headlines and snippets will be presented to you in a very easy to browse organised way.

How does RSS work?

RSS works by having the website author maintain a list of notifications on their website in a standard way. This list of notifications is called an "RSS Feed". People who are interested in finding out the latest headlines or changes can check this list. Special computer programs called "RSS aggregators" have been developed that automatically access the RSS feeds of websites you care about on your behalf and organize the results for you. (RSS feeds and aggregators are also sometimes called "RSS Channels" and "RSS Readers".) An important point to remember here is...The search engines love RSS feeds, some
have special directories listing only rss feeds. If you own a sales blog-You will wanted to be searched and indexed frequently by all the search engines as much and as often as possible.

What information does RSS provide?

RSS provides very basic information to do its notification. It is made up of a list of items presented in order from newest to oldest. Each item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the actual information being described. Sometimes this description is the full information you want to read (such as the content of a weblog post) and sometimes it is just a summary or snippet. At the moment, I myself am trying to work out how to make feeds that will also display thumbnail pictures(So I'll let you all know on this when/if I've cracked it.

For example, the RSS information for headlines on a local news website could contain the following information:

E.G:
Title: Teen-Acne
Description: The new treatment that could cure Acne Forever 
Link: http://www.teen-acne.co.uk

The RSS information is placed into a single file on a website in a manner similar to normal web pages. However, the information is coded in the XML computer language for use by a program (the RSS aggregator) and not by a person like a normal web page.

RSS aggregator programs

Think of an RSS aggregator as just a web browser for RSS content. RSS aggregators automatically check a series of RSS feeds for new items on an ongoing basis, making it is possible to keep track of changes to multiple websites without needing to tediously read and re-read each of the websites yourself. They detect the additions and present them all together to you in
a compact and useful manner. If the title and description of an item are of interest, the link can be used to quickly bring the related web page up for reading.

I Had a programmer build for me, a custom RSS announcer. This presents youR feed to 100's of feed aggregator services in just a few seconds.

RSS agregators get given your feed for inclustion.(Theses are just like directories) The best news about these 'RSS aggregator's is, once they include your feed in their directory, search engines count them as a subscriber/Bookmark, making your blog seem more popular with many bookmarks to it. SE's favorsites/blogs with a high level of bookmarks and will rate you more highly for having more of them to your site or blog as far as I can tell.

There are ways of including ready made feeds on your sites and blogs for affiliate programmes such as Amazon etc. Look out for sponsors who provide an RSS to add to your sites and blogs. RSS= Free daily updated content for you on your sites and blogs.