RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Some websites offer RSS as an alternative way of providing users with access to information. RSS allows you to obtain updated information from a website without visiting a website.

RSS Explained

RSS is a dialect of XML. All RSS files must conform to the XML 1.0 specification, as published on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website.

Usually access to RSS feeds is marked with one of the following icons, or a variation of these icons. You might see variations to these images, but in most cases they will be orange or red in color with white text which says RSS or XML on it

RSS 2.0 [D]   small orange box with white text XML in it

At the top level of a RSS document is a<rss> element, with a mandatory attribute called version, that specifies the version of RSS that the document conforms to. If it conforms to 2.0 specification, the version attribute must be 2.0.

<rss version="2.0">

Subordinate to the <rss> element is a single <channel> element, which contains information about the channel (metadata) and its contents. There are 3 required channel elements or tags <title> , <link> , <description>.

A channel may contain any number of <item>s. An item may represent a "story" -- much like a story in a newspaper or magazine; if so its description is a synopsis of the story, and the link points to the full story. An item may also be complete in itself, if so, the description contains the text (entity-encoded HTML is allowed), and the link and title may be omitted. All elements of an item are optional, however at least one of title or description must be present.

title
The name of the channel/item. It's how people refer to your service. If you have an HTML website that contains the same information as your RSS file, the title of your channel/item should preferably be the same as the title of your website.
link
The URL to the HTML website corresponding to the channel/item.
description
Phrase or sentence describing the channel/item.

Complete Sample

<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>ghaste.com</title>
<link>http://ghaste.com/</link>
<description>ghaste.com features a rich mix of information about me, Amit Ghaste and tutorials on Web design and development.</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<item>
<title>A better JavaScript - CSS Style Switcher</title>
<link>
http://ghaste.com/tutorials/styleswitcher.html
</link>
<description>Allowing users to switch between couple of styles that you have created need not be just a jazz up.
It would in fact increase the usability by giving them a text only version view of your page. With the advent of CSS
based designing, and by using PHP or JavaScript to switch styles, you will not have to code the same page in multiple files.
This tutorial shows how to do switch styles using Javascript, which works both in IE6 and Firefox 1.0</description>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

How do I read RSS?

To read it you would have to subscribe to an RSS feed using a news reader or news aggregator. The news reader then regularly checks for updates and automatically downloads them to your computer. You then check your news reader software anytime to see what's new on the web sites or information topics to which you have subscribed.

RSS feeds are available from thousands of different websites. Most provide headlines and summaries of new information for quick review. If you want additional information, you can link directly to the website from the feed.

Switch Styles Skip style menu
RSS feed of tutorials on this website.
RSS Explained