AUTHORS ELECTRIC HOW TO DAY - RSS Feeds – How to find your RSS URL - Chris Longmuir

Authors Electric recently dipped a toe into Triberr. This was followed by screams of anguish about the mysteries of RSS, and how to find the correct URL to enable the RSS feed.

So, first of all what is RSS, and what is it needed for. Well, I’m no expert, but I’ll share what I know.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is an easy way for web sites to share headlines and stories from other sites. For the purposes of Authors Electric it is needed to ensure that the members who have signed up for Triberr, can share their blogs with all the other members and their followers.

It is immensely time consuming to search for and visit each blog in turn by traditional methods using search engines, however, by using Triberr, the blogs come to the members through this portal reducing the need to go searching for them. By visiting Triberr once a day, or once a week, or whatever schedule suits, you will find all the other members blogs are gathered together in a list. This list can be inspected so that members can choose the blogs that interest them and be taken there immediately with one click of the mouse, or they can simply share them. But in order for this to work, Triberr has to know where to find the blogs, and that is what the RSS feed is for. Once you have found your RSS feed URL, it needs to be added to the blog details under My Blogs in your Settings, on the Triberr site.
My Blogs in Account Settings

This is the point some people give up in despair because they don’t know how to find their RSS feed URL.

How to find your RSS URL
1. The easiest way is to look for the RSS icon on your blog. It is an orange square with a white dot in the lower left hand corner, and two white curved lines above it. Click on this square and it will take you to a page which is completely white and will say in the top left side, “Not Found”, however, if you look in the address line of your browser you will see the RSS URL. Copy this URL and paste it into the Blog Details in Triberr. You’ll probably have to click +Add Blog to get the proper place to paste your URL
RSS Button
2. If you don’t have the RSS icon on your blog page then all you have to do is add a little bit onto the end of your blog address:

Wordpress - the extra bit is /?feed=rss2
So if your blog address is http://blogname.com/ you would add this extra bit to make it http://blogname.com/?feed=RSS2
One website I consulted said that all you need to add onto the end of your blog url is /feed/ which would make the address http://blogname.com/feed/ I haven’t tried this one though so not sure whether it will work.

Blogger – the extra bit is /feeds/posts.default?alt=rss
So if your blog address is http://blogname.blogspot.com you would add this extra bit to make it http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

You would, of course substitute your own blog name for “blogname”.

Once you have copied your url from your blog and pasted it into Triberr, there is a button to test the feed. If you have done this successfully all your new blogs will appear in the other members live stream so they can visit or tweet it.

You must then assign your blog to a tribe. To do this click on the “Assign Tribes” button which sits immediately below “Blog Details” and next to “+ Add Blog”. A window will open and you simply click the down arrow of the tribe you want to assign your RSS feed to. You are only allowed one feed to a tribe. If you only belong to one tribe and only have one feed this is not a problem, likewise if you belong to several tribes but only have one blog RSS feed you simply assign that blog to each tribe. However, if you have more than one blog you need to think which blog you want attached to which tribe. Once you assign a specific blog to a tribe you cannot change it for 30 days. If you look at the diagram you will see I have my own blog assigned to “Love a Happy Ending” and “Red Herrings”, but I have assigned the “Authors Electric” blog to the tribe of “Authors Electric”. This means my own personal blog will not appear in the “Authors Electric” tribe stream for sharing.
Assign Tribes under Blog Details

The other place you can add your RSS URL is your Amazon Author page. Go to Amazon Author Central, but it must be Amazon.com not Amazon.co.uk, once you are there you can add your blog feed to to your author page using the same RSS feed you used for Triberr. However, for some reason the UK site does not have the facility to add a blog it must be the US one. The blog feed goes on your Profile page.

I hope that this information is helpful to you.

 
Chris Longmuir





Comments

Jan Needle said…
thank you, chris. me 'ead 'urts.
Susan Price said…
Very useful, Chris - thank you! Following your clear instructions, I've succeeded in feeding my blog to Triberr.
Dan Holloway said…
This is incredibly useful, Chris. RSS is something I keep meaning to look into but never have, so I'll keep this well and truly bookmarked.
Kathleen Jones said…
Thanks Chris - I've been trying to find my rss feed for years!!!
@Ruby_Barnes said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
@Ruby_Barnes said…
Nice one, Chris. Your explanation is great!
julia jones said…
But Chris I think it would be good if you DID add your personal blog to the AE tribe as, for me, one of the reasons for welcoming Triberr is for the opportunity to see what, Sue Price is saying on her blog or it could be Catherine C at Wordarts or you at your blog - do consider it.
This is incredibly helpful, Chris, but like Scarlett O'Hara, I can't think about this right now and will have to think about it tomorrow. Well, in a few weeks time, really!
Chris Longmuir said…
Julia, I can't put my blog on until the 30 days are up because you can only assign 1 blog address to a tribe. The 30 days is up on my next posting day, the 19th November. I will be able to switch it then because Ruby has kindly made Authors Electric a tribe member in its own right. When I assigned The AE blog it was the only way to have it appear, and I felt it was more important to get that one appearing than my own one. I'll get my reward in heaven!
glitter noir said…
Thanks, Chris. I have no idea what your last comment means, but am looking forward to putting what you and Ruby have taught me to work tomorrow--my Triberr Day. Unless your last comment contains some terrible reason why I won't be able to.
Chris Longmuir said…
No terrible reason there, Reb. It just means my blog doesn't appear on the Authors Electric Tribe in Triberr, so I won't benefit from the extra tweets(sob). Presently, the blog that relates to me on Triberr is the Authors Electric one!

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