Have RSS BOT - Now What Do I Do With It?

[magentawave]

I obviously have a lot to learn about RSS. I am setting up Big Mike's Traffic Mania RSS Bot I bought last week and have a few questions please...

1) Accounts: For the RSS feeds that require a username and password. Do I need to go to each of those websites and create an account first? Or can I create a username and password right there and enter them into the boxes on the Accounts page?

2) Accounts: If I understand correctly from the instructions, it is not necessary to create a 'New Profile' for each domain. Is that true? Is the one default profile all I need for multiple domains?

3) My Feeds:

a) What are the url's I'm supposed to enter for 'Feed URLS'?
b) Do I enter the url for a new page that I just created like www.mywebsite.com/article-about-whatever ?
c) Or am I supposed to enter some weird url that ends with an RSS? If so, where do I get such a url?
d) When I click the 'My Feeds' button and add a url, does it matter that I add urls from many different domains in that list?
e) Should I use the exact same keywords and description I entered for each individual page I published?
f) Can I enter urls for articles I published a month or two ago, or do I have to enter the urls only when they are brand new and just published?

4) Contact Information: Is it necessary for me to enter a url in that box when I will be using this for many different domains?

I know, that is a lot of stuff, but I appreciate any feedback here.

Thank you very much.
Steve

[krishananda]

I bought Big Mike's RSSbot but haven't had the time to use it.
For the RSS things, I found FREE RSS Tips from a fellow warrior Karen Newton.
Great site to learn RSS, there are cool things I didn't know before.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by krishananda

I bought Big Mike's RSSbot but haven't had the time to use it.
For the RSS things, I found FREE RSS Tips from a fellow warrior Karen Newton.
Great site to learn RSS, there are cool things I didn't know before.

Thanks for the tip on the RSS website. I will check that out.

Thanks
Steve

[MarkR]

Steve,

You only need to set up account at the 4 or 5 that require a login.

You need to create the account at the site that requires it.

Karen's site should help with where to find the feed.

Contact information - enter it one time - it's good for all feeds/profiles.

Mark

[magentawave]

I'm still confused about what url's to enter in the My Feeds section. Big Mike said to add url's that end with xml or rss but the only url I know of for my sites that ends with xml is my xml sitemap htttp://www.mywebsite.com/sitemap.xml and a Feedburner url that looks like this htttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite (I added an extra 't' so it wouldn't be a link).

Am I supposed to add my xml sitemap url and the feedburner url to the My Feeds section in RSS Bot?

Thanks again
Steve

[magentawave]

Actually, I just clicked through from the Feedburner page at one of my Wordpress sites and see two more rss/xml ending urls for this site...

RSS 2.0: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/
RSS .92: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/
Atom 0.3: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/atom/

Should I add all three of those AND my XML Sitemap url to the My Feeds section in RSS Bot?

Steve

[magentawave]

Anybody else want to chime in? Please?

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by magentawave

Actually, I just clicked through from the Feedburner page at one of my Wordpress sites and see two more rss/xml ending urls for this site...

RSS 2.0: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/
RSS .92: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/
Atom 0.3: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/atom/

Should I add all three of those AND my XML Sitemap url to the My Feeds section in RSS Bot?

Steve

Hi Steve,

This is your main RSS pheed:
htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/

Submit it.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by Kurt

Hi Steve,

This is your main RSS pheed:
htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/

Submit it.

Thanks Kurt. So if I have 20 different websites, all I need to do is to enter htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/ for each of those 20 sites into the 'My Feeds' section with RSS Bot? And then after I do that, do I need to resubmit to RSS Bot everytime I add a new page to one of my sites?

Steve

[Karen Newton]

Originally Posted by magentawave

Actually, I just clicked through from the Feedburner page at one of my Wordpress sites and see two more rss/xml ending urls for this site...

RSS 2.0: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/
RSS .92: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/
Atom 0.3: htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/atom/

Should I add all three of those AND my XML Sitemap url to the My Feeds section in RSS Bot?

Steve

Krishananda thank you for mentioning Free RSS Tips. Magentawave have you taken a look at it? My guide might help you get familiar with that RSS is etc.

Those 3 urls you listed above are all "types of RSS feeds". I say that with quotes because it isn't *technically* valid stating it like that, but for the purpose of this conversation it's fine. RSS is a technology, a model. There are several versions out since it originated, and then ATOM came long which is an "improved" version of RSS. Essentially you can use any of those as your RSS feed - or use all 3 (when I am auto-submitting RSS feeds I would use all 3).

Your sitemap xml document is not an RSS feed. Many files can end in ".xml" but that doesn't make them an RSS feed, and many RSS feed urls do not end in ".xml", it is not mandatory that they do.

If you are ever wondering if a url you are looking at is an RSS feed or not, view it in Firefox (do you use FF?). If it lists your site's content in either partial or full format, it's an RSS feed. It might show you weird stuff (XML) with terms like "<channel>" and "<item>" - that's ok it's also an RSS feed, if it contains the content from your site.

Hope that helps and good luck!
Karen

[Karen Newton]

Magentawave,
Not trying to push my free RSS guide but I answer a lot of these questions in there. It's free anyhow and you can just opt out after you receive it.
Take care,
Karen

Kurt you are so funny with your insistence on saying "pheed" all the time!

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by Karen Newton

Magentawave,
Not trying to push my free RSS guide but I answer a lot of these questions in there. It's free anyhow and you can just opt out after you receive it.
Take care,
Karen

Kurt you are so funny with your insistence on saying "pheed" all the time!

Thanks Karen! Its okay to "push" your site! I haven't had a chance to check it out today but I will go over it tonight. Yes I do use Firefox 3.0.

Quick question in case this isn't mentioned on your site:

Why is that when I type htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/ (which is the name of my RSS feeds according to Kurt) into my browser, it seems to redirect to a url that looks like this:

htttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite

Steve

[Karen Newton]

Is your site using Wordpress? I'm not 100% sure but I think that's a setting in your Wordpress theme that redirects your default ("native") RSS feed to your Feedburner feed. You might see some setting within your theme or a plugin?

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by Karen Newton

Is your site using Wordpress? I'm not 100% sure but I think that's a setting in your Wordpress theme that redirects your default ("native") RSS feed to your Feedburner feed. You might see some setting within your theme or a plugin?

Yes, most of my sites are Wordpress sites now. Is it a bad thing that it redirects to my Feedburner feed?

Steve

[magentawave]

Hi Karen (or anyone else!),

I went over your website last night and read your free RSS ebook (Its good, thank you!). I have a couple more questions please...

1) In Wordpress, when I go to Settings and then Writing, at the bottom of that page is the Update Services box where I have 68 update services (like http://rpc.pingomatic.com/, etc,). If I use Big Mikes RSS Bot, do I still need to ping all those update services?

2) I'm using Feedburner and it is redirecting all my RSS feed urls httttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/ AND httttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/ AND httttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/atom/
to this: httttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite. Those same urls can be seen when I click on the little orange RSS icon in the top right of my Firefox browser address bar...and of course all those redirect to httttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite too. Since everything is redirecting to that Feedburner url, I'm wondering if that will mess things up when submitting with RSS BOT? And if it is, how do I get rid of Feedburner now that I have set up an account with them?

3) Has anyone experimented with using Adsense on their RSS feed pages?

4) Is there a copyright plugin for RSS feeds that works with WP 2.7? The one I was using stopped working (Augsmans).

Thanks again.

Steve

[IMChick]

Big Mike has exceptional CS. And I just got a pdf bonus report from his company of what rss is and how it works. Start there and then go to karen's site for the report. That will give you a good framework and answer some of the more basic questions. I'm just learning it, too, and it's the tech stuff that's tripping me up. I know what RSS is but because I'm weak on the 'how' part I'm having trouble answering some of my questions, too.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by IMChick

Big Mike has exceptional CS. And I just got a pdf bonus report from his company of what rss is and how it works. Start there and then go to karen's site for the report. That will give you a good framework and answer some of the more basic questions. I'm just learning it, too, and it's the tech stuff that's tripping me up. I know what RSS is but because I'm weak on the 'how' part I'm having trouble answering some of my questions, too.

Yes I went over Karens site last night and also read her free RSS ebook. That helped a lot too, but I still have a few more questions about this stuff as you can see above. You are right that Big Mike has excellent customer and I have written him.

Thank you.
Steve

[Karen Newton]

Originally Posted by magentawave

Hi Karen (or anyone else!),

I went over your website last night and read your free RSS ebook (Its good, thank you!). I have a couple more questions please...

1) In Wordpress, when I go to Settings and then Writing, at the bottom of that page is the Update Services box where I have 68 update services (like http://rpc.pingomatic.com/, etc,). If I use Big Mikes RSS Bot, do I still need to ping all those update services?

Most ping services are not the same as submitting your RSS feed to RSS aggregators so yes still do the pinging. Pinging and RSS aggregators sometimes overlap (ie some ping services are also RSS aggregators) but do both. Beware of multiple ping services that will cause your pinging to duplicate out - do a search here on the WF about pinging there were some good discussions about it awhile back.

Originally Posted by magentawave

2) I'm using Feedburner and it is redirecting all my RSS feed urls httttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/ AND httttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/ AND httttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/atom/
to this: httttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite. Those same urls can be seen when I click on the little orange RSS icon in the top right of my Firefox browser address bar...and of course all those redirect to httttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite too. Since everything is redirecting to that Feedburner url, I'm wondering if that will mess things up when submitting with RSS BOT? And if it is, how do I get rid of Feedburner now that I have set up an account with them?

Okay this is where you are focusing too much on the small things and need to move on. Here is my feedburner feed:
lushprofits.com
It's fine to use that for RSSBot or any other RSS submission software (I use Brute Force SEO for eg.). Just use that url you will be fine. If you want to totally omit having anything to do with Feedburner well thats another thing entirely. There's nothing wrong in using it though (and offers many benefits incl. analytics).

Originally Posted by magentawave

3) Has anyone experimented with using Adsense on their RSS feed pages?

No but just so you're aware you can always add your own advertising within your feeds too you aren't just limited to the Adsense for Feeds program. I found this site WPRecipes.com to offer a wealth of information, and for this particular point take a look at:
Hack: insert ads in your RSS feed

Originally Posted by magentawave

4) Is there a copyright plugin for RSS feeds that works with WP 2.7? The one I was using stopped working (Augsmans).

Not sure who "Augsmans" plugin is but I know of 2 copyright plugins, but I do not know if they work on 2.7 or not:

Yoast: RSS Footer - Yoast - Tweaking Websites
Sig2Feed: Sig2Feed RSS signature WordPress plugin

Of course if you read about the link I gave in prior comment (hack to insert ads into your feed) you could easily adopt that to add a copyright instead of an advertisement.



Good luck
Karen

[MizzCindy]

Steve,

Thanks so much for posting your questions here! I'll be setting up RSSBot this weekend and I'm also a bit confused. I get the RSS big picture, but the details are kicking my toucas.

BIGMike does have excellent CS, BUT I'm doing a bit of preliminary research first since I'm not even sure what questions to ask. Ack!

Karen - thanks to you, too, for your assistance!

Glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't entirely 'get it'.

Cindy

[IMChick]

You know, after all this, I think that I'm 'over-thinking' it and am going to try not to because it can drive me over the deep end. I don't have to know how the tech stuff works if I can figure out the right questions to ask, right?

This weekend hopefully I will be re-reading some stuff I bookmarked and will try to figure out the basics from there. I'll be sure to let you know if I have success!

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by Karen Newton

Magentawave,
Not trying to push my free RSS guide but I answer a lot of these questions in there. It's free anyhow and you can just opt out after you receive it.
Take care,
Karen

Kurt you are so funny with your insistence on saying "pheed" all the time!

Thanks Karen..Actually, I own the domain www.pheeds.com so I'm on a one-man mission to get the entire net to spell feeds the "correct" way: pheeds. If I can to that, I'll have a million dollar domain.

Originally Posted by magentawave

Thanks Karen! Its okay to "push" your site! I haven't had a chance to check it out today but I will go over it tonight. Yes I do use Firefox 3.0.

Quick question in case this isn't mentioned on your site:

Why is that when I type htttp://www.mywebsite.com/feed/rss/ (which is the name of my RSS feeds according to Kurt) into my browser, it seems to redirect to a url that looks like this:

htttp://feeds.feedburner.com/MyWebsite

Steve

Hey Steve,

When you go to the Feedburner page above, in your browser "View Source" and look for an auto discovery tag. It will appear inbetween the <head></head> tags and looks something like this:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="aaaaaaaa" href="YourDomain.com/rss" />

This tells browsers, aggregators, ping spiders, etc that there is another version of the page available, in this case it's RSS/XML, and the "href" tells "where" the alternative version is.

If you have an auto discovery tag, the RSS directories "should" be able to find your RSS pheed.

You'll get this figured out...But the most important thing to consider is that you need to optimize your blog posts. This means to use the MAIN keywords (not long tail) early in your posts. Use main and long tail keywords in your titles, as this will become the anchor text other sites will use to link to you.

Remember, if you submit and ping, your RSS content will appear in many other directories. The main goal should be to have OTHER sites pick up and publish your pheeds, so you build links on auto-pilot. And they will use main keywords to find pheeds to place on their own sites.

And if you're really "sneaky", you can employ what's known as an "RSS blackhole", with the purpose of spamming spam sites. These ping sites are where the hard core spammers find their RSS pheeds. It's possible to take advantage of this and spam the spammers with your own stuff, so their pages are built with RSS pheeds that have a lot of links back to your pages.

If you don't want your content to appear on other sites, then you shouldn't even bother with RSS submit and ping.

[Karen Newton]

Interesting site Kurt, I'll be sure to take a look at your 'bomb' sites. Not sure if you'll convert me to saying 'pheed' or not... I don't think I'm cool enough for that!

[mikeevee]

I use feedburner (nicer RSS feeds) and Wordpress

Now I have just bought RSSBot so I can publicise the feeds a little more. What I was wondering is whether it is better to use the original Wordpress Raw XML feeds (ie the ones you get by default in Wordpress) with RSSBot, or to use the Feedburner ones?

[John_Pearce]

Hi Karen - is your site freersstips.com still up? I can't access it!

JP

[Karen Newton]

Hi John
Unfortunately no it is not up, I lost the hosting it was on awhile back. If you want though I can send you my free RSS guide - email me at psknewton -at- rogers -dot- com and I can reply back with the pdf.
Karen

[John_Pearce]

Thanks Karen - email on the way!

JP

[marigreen]

Hi Karen ~ I'd love to have a look at the pdf also if you don't mind email on it's way ~ Thanks