The Wonder and Mystery of RSS - Is It the Wave of the Future?

I've been studying RSS to the point of exhaustion the last few weeks and although there are still some gaps in my understanding, I feel like I can talk intelligently about it (finally!).

I think I've been to every site within reason that discusses the subject and have learned the importance of using the feeds provided by blogging software, as well as how to add feeds to static sites, set up auto discovery statements, and even manually mashup and validate my own .xml feeds.

That being said, I find myself with more questions than answers:

* Do your customers | readers understand how to use RSS?
* Are the various agregators and RSS providers a valuable resource for link building and SEO?

Obviously, those that are selling the technology would like you to believe that RSS is the best thing since sliced bread, and I feel that it has a growing position in your toolkit of SEO tools, but there are still limitations to it's value.

Like any other aspect of IM, such as article submission and social bokmarking, it is only as good as the results you get from your campaign. There are advantages and disadvantages that have to be addressed in any form of marketing.

For example, article marketing is only as good as the value of your article and the influence of the sites that you submit it to, likewise with social bookmarks. I have submitted articles to ezine articles and have a CTR close to 50% but the same or similar articles at other sites have bordered on useless. I have submitted articles to Digg and Propeller and gotten an instant boost in the SERP's as well as search engine recognition resulting from the submissons, but other social sites?....NADA...zilch!

I recently conducted an experiment where I developed a new wordpress site and SEO'd it to the limit with the tools I have available and with the help of Digg and Propeller, got a pretty good position pretty quickly...but I also submitted it to 10-12 RSS feed sites each day for a week.

I wasn't getting any results to speak of, maybe a week is still too soon, but I took a list of RSS sites furnished by a warrior here in their free report and tried it again. As it turns out, many of the sites were the same (I've got a list of close to 200 RSS sites) and my impression was disappointing to say the least!

Many of the sites I had submitted to had no record after a week, and many others were so hard to navigate that no one could find your feed in there if they searched for hours! Some (many) didn't have a clear way to submit your feed, seach for a feed, or even figure out WTF they were thinking!

The point is, an article site or a social site or an RSS site only becomes a link when someone finds it and clicks on it! Read that again so it sinks in...

Okay, I'm done rambling, I just wanted to open a discussion about the 'true' value of any given SEO technique and ask you about your results and maybe a few "tricks" you're using.

As for those of you that will inevitably chime in and espouse the virtues of PPC and JV partnerships, this is directed at those who are spending their meager IM earnings on their habits (groceries, mortgage, car payment) and have lists like mine, numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands.

Steve

p.s. Happy Thanksgiving! I hope some of you gave thanks for this wonderful asset that Mr. Says has provided us.