8.8 : RSS

What is RSS?
RSS is a format for syndicating out—and pulling in—news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like CNN.com, the global labor news site, LabourStart, and blog sites. Basically, RSS feeds are lists of headlines of recently posted content.

There are two ways to use RSS on the SEIU Web Network:
1) Generate an RSS feed to push out headlines of your site’s articles, events, or press releases
2) Pull in RSS feeds (headlines) from external sites



Generate RSS feeds to push out your content to the outside world
One RSS feed is generated per website with any of three content types: Article, Press Release, Events. Each piece of content with a “RSS feed” tag will get added to a site’s feed. (You don’t have to do anything to generate the feed, other than start assigning content an “RSS feed” tag.)

Promote the RSS feed on your site with an RSS promo or icon. (Look for this icon in the Dings menu of your editor.)

The URL of your site’s feed is http://YOUR_SITE’S_URL/rss.ashx
(For example http://www.seiu4321.org/rss.ashx.)

Link an RSS icon or promo, and text that might read “RSS: Subscribe to our site’s headlines.”

Each blog generates its own RSS feed, accessible by the RSS icon on the blog. Displaying a blog RSS feed is optional (check ‘Display RSS Feed’ in the Create or Edit Blog window).



Pull in RSS feeds from external sites and add to your site
To pull in a feed from an external source to your site
1. Go to Manage > Content > RSS > Add an RSS Feed.
2. Name the feed and provide the URL (the URL should end in .xml).
3. Once you add the feed, the system will take a few minutes to verify it.
4. To add the feed to a page on your site, navigate to the page in your Web site view.
5. In the appropriate section on that page, select the green plus button.
6. In the content selector window, choose RSS and select the appropriate feed.

Note: You cannot control the content of an external RSS feed. It's an all or nothing proposition. So if you add someone else's RSS feed to your site, you're allowing them to place content on your site without your ability to review it beforehand. Consider carefully the trustworthiness of every RSS source you add to your site.

Display
> If feed is inserted into a middle column, the headlines appear with title date, description, and link to the full article on the external site that generated the RSS feed.



Back to User Manual Table of Contents