What Is My Blog (Site) Feed?

This is The Real Blogger Status, and you are looking at the blog itself. What you see is a lot easier for you to digest, than for computers to do so. There's another copy of your blog, though, that's designed for computers to digest, so the information can be passed to other places, maybe as part of another web site or blog, or to a reader who is subscribed to your blog, using a newsreader. The other copy is called the site feed.

The site feed contains each individual post, rewritten in XML. XML is a structured data language, making it easier for computer programs to read and process the contents. The site feed contains only the posts - nothing from the template. If the nature of your blog requires access to a gadget in the sidebar, your readers will need to visit the blog directly.

You may be able to see an example of what a site feed looks like, if you like. If you're viewing this post in main page view (or labels retrieval view), look at the bottom of the page, for

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

for a link to the posts feed, for the site as a whole. If you created a custom feed, using FeedBurner or a similar service, and if you properly redirected your posts feed to the custom feed, this link will lead to the custom feed.

Similarly, if you're viewing this post in single post mode, look at the bottom of the page, for

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

for the link to the comments feed, for that post.

This blog is The Real Blogger Status http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/.

This blog has 4 site posts feeds.

• Atom (classic): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml.
• RSS (classic): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/rss.xml.
• Atom (new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default.
• RSS (new): http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss.

This blog has 2 site comments feeds.

• Atom: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/comments/default.
• RSS: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss.

This post has 2 comments feeds.

• Atom: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/494708298507343989/comments/default
• RSS: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/494708298507343989/comments/default?alt=rss

Note that the normal URL for an Atom feed, as in the example above, is http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default. Consistent with the URL for the RSS feed, http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss, you can similarly address the Atom feed as http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=atom. Some web sites and services may not accept the former, but may accept the latter, Atom URL. All feeds provide for URLs with both suffixes, "?alt=atom" and "?alt=rss".

If you have a syndication newsreader (not the same as a Usenet newsreader, please don't confuse the two), you can load any of the above links and have feed subscriptions for some portions of this blog. Depending upon whether the reader will accept Atom or RSS, you choose appropriately. RSS, supposedly, is more feature rich.

For an exciting way to use newsfeeds, better than just a feed reader (which gives you a blog published to a bunch of anonymous strangers), try Following, which lets you see who your readers are, and gives you a targetable surfing environment - similar in concept to "Next Blog", but with less risk and uncertainty.

The (classic) site posts feeds were available with classic blogs. Starting with New Blogger 2006, additional feeds - comment feeds for the blog ("Blog Comment Feed"), comment feeds for each individual post ("Per Post Comment Feeds"), and Label feeds for the blog, are also available, and the (new) naming convention supports a naming (URL) structure for those feeds also.

The Classic feeds, while appearing redundant, have their uses. If you're setting up a Google SiteMap, you'll discover their use. This blog is

blogging.nitecruzr.net

The classic feeds for this blog are

blogging.nitecruzr.net/atom.xml
blogging.nitecruzr.net/rss.xml

The Google sitemap requires the sitemap source file to be in the same folder ("level") as the web site (blog). The two new feeds are in sub folders. Neither

blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=atom
blogging.nitecruzr.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

will work, to produce a Google Sitemap. Try it, and learn.

Your blog should have its own feeds, equivalently named, for you to use, with two notable exceptions.

• If your blog is being published through FTP, you'll have slightly different settings to consider.
• No feeds are available, with a private blog. Right now (and possibly changing in the near future), feeds are available only with public blogs, and unrestricted access.

You activate the feeds from Settings - Site Feed. Routinely, you'll have one setting - "Allow Blog Feeds" - and this setting will affect all feed options equally. If you select "Switch to: Advanced Mode", you can enable or disable any of the 3 feed options, separately.

• Blog Posts Feed
• Blog Comments Feed
• Per-Post Comment Feeds

Each setting will have 3 possible selections - None, Short, or Full.

(Note): If you enable a feed, it is available to anybody with a feed reader, either a feed reader that they personally use, or one built in to a blog. There is no option to limit feed access - feeds are available, equally, to all interested parties. This is why feeds are not available for limited access (private) blogs.

If you fear that unknown parties might steal content from your blog by using your feed, don't publish a Full feed, publish a Short feed. This will require anybody wishing to read a complete post to access your blog, rather than reading it in their newsreader.

Knowing the URL of my feed, what do I do now? I could just open my favourite feed reader, or social networking web site, and drop the feed in. But what if the feed reader or web site wasn't working properly, or I misunderstood the instructions? What if I see

Invalid URL

or the like, what do I do?

The smart thing to do, before you try BlogRush or a similar web site, is to test the feed. Any modern browser (Firefox V2, or Internet Explorer V7, for instance) will give you an explicit notice when you are loading a feed URL.


http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/
feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
displayed by Firefox



http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/
feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
displayed by Internet Explorer



Click on any of the above feed links, for instance, and the browser should inform you, explicitly, that you're viewing a feed. If you load what you think is your feed URL into your browser, and you don't see a similar notice, recheck your URL.

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