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Monitoring RSS Feeds
By S. Housley

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Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

What is RSS RSS Feed Very simply, RSS is a standard for publishing regular content updates through the web. Using this standard, when a publisher on the web makes an update (such as a blogger making a new blog post, a news site posting a news story, or WebEx announcing a new web seminar in the Webex Web Seminar Series) a headline and link for this update will be published with RSS. This RSS content is typically referred to as a "feed."

Business Hosting Provider Web It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

A feed is normally read using a RSS Reader or News Aggregator. Some examples are listed below but you can use any other one that you like. Active Web Reader //www.deskshare. awr.aspx Reddit //feeds.reddit. What are the benefits of RSS RSS feeds allow you to stay up to date with the latest news, products and special offers without having to visit each and every site that you normally monitor. This is a free service offered by Savapoint.

Ecommerce Hosting Email There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

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Cheap Web Hosting Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption
Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

RSS, sometimes known as Really Simple Syndication, is a popular means of sharing content (such as news headlines) without requiring readers to constantly visit a Web site to see what's new. RSS feeds contain headlines and hyperlinks to longer articles or Web pages. How do I start using RSS feeds Choose a Feed Type My Yahoo! Bloglines Newsgator Google

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The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) brings automatically updated information straight to your desktop. With RSS feeds, you can quickly and easily monitor your favorite Web sites for new content, without having to check them manually. It' saving feature. With a Best Buy RSS feed, for example, you can get updates on the latest promotions, new products, top sellers and more.

Web Hosting Domains FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Web Hosting Domain Names Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Domain Name Registration Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

Hosting Web Hosting The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

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Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Web Hosting Business Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Web Hosting Email Uniquely Named Transparent Images
Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Dedicated Web Hosting Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Web Hosting Comparisons Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.
http://www.pheedo.com

Affordable Web Hosting SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.
http://www.syndicateiq.com/

Web Hosting Package FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).
http://www.feedburner.com

Web Hosting Provider Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

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About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com an RSS component for developers.

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