Dmoz, Who Dmoz, Dmoz Directory ?

Reading RSS Feeds with an RSS Aggregator
RSS or Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary is the latest information management tool that is gradually earning popularity among web users and website owners. With RSS technology, it is possible to get the latest postings from your favorite websites. But clicking on the RSS or XML button in a homepage is not enough to give you the service you need. An RSS feed or code displayed in the pop-up screen if not on the main page is composed of symbols and words that would only make sense to advanced RSS users and computer programmers and software enthusiasts. Another software tool called an RSS aggregator or reader is needed.

An aggregator works by scanning the worldwide web with latest postings based on the RSS code (containing the website’s URL) provided or added by the user. When it finds a new posting, news, or update, it will publish the RSS feed on your home page containing the title of the posting, which also serves as a clickable link to the website source. This RSS feed may or may not contain the whole article, a summary, and photos, depending on what RSS aggregator you are using.

Aggregators come in two types: the downloadable program or desktop-type and the online or web-based type. The desktop aggregator usually charges a certain amount for its services; this would include regular updating in the form of upgrades or patches to the original version. This type of RSS reader allows more customization of RSS feeds as well as page format or design over its on-line counterparts. But of course, price can be a drawback.

On-line or web-based aggregators are free of charge. All you need to do is register an account with them then you can start enjoying their services. Depending on the “brand” of the aggregator, customization is more limited. Some even do not allow you to customize at all.

Product and service advertisers are realizing the potential of RSS aggregators in internet marketing. In fact, several submit RSS codes to several popular web-based aggregators to reach the growing technophile and internet-based market. My Yahoo has been instrumental in popularizing RSS technology to both users and website owners and advertisers.

At present, there are many aggregators to choose from and newer versions of the same aggregator are constantly developed by its programmers.

Below are some of these desktop and online aggregators:
Desktop Aggregators
1. AmphetaDesk
Advantages:
- free
- supports Linux, Mac, and Windows
- easy addition of RSS feeds

Disadvantages:
- not maximized use of screen display
- few options for customizing

2. FeedDemon
Advantages:
- user friendly
- free trial version
- contains prepared popular feeds
- allows filtering of RSS feeds
- configurable “watch list” to manage junk RSS feeds
- search channel feature that incorporates other RSS services e.g. Feedster
- allows feed storage for future use
- tabbed browsers for channel navigation
- built-in podcast receiver

Disadvantages:
- supports only Internet Explorer (embedded)
- paid software (`$29.95)
Online Aggregators
1. Bloglines
Advantages:
- all major browsers supported (e.g. Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Firefox)
- user-friendly especially for beginners
- free, web-based aggregator
- easy registration
- no advertisements
- contains its own directory of RSS feeds of thousands of websites
- personal email account for subscribing to newsletter emails (optional)
- allows privacy adjustments for personal blogs
- allows saved searches
- mobile version available
- 10 languages supported
- Additional add-on tools for automated blogrolls and subscription buttons

2. NewsGator
Advantages:
- free (consumer-standard version)
- provides personalized news channel
- allows translation of RSS articles into email format
- synchronization of feeds in several devices possible
- browse and search feed capabilities save time on surfing
- allows keyword filtering
- blog headlines
- button-click automatic subscription to news feeds

Disadvantage:
- Outlook-based thus limited to Windows

3. My Yahoo
Advantages:
- Free web-based aggregator
- user-friendly
- customizable home page design
- button-click subscription to RSS feeds
- built-in directory and search tool for feeds
- wide variety of feeds e.g. news (science, technology, local), weather
- connects to all Yahoo features and services

Disadvantage
- banner advertisements
There are also lightweight RSS aggregator extensions which are actually plug-ins to existing internet browsers. An example of which is Sage aggregator.

Advantages:
- free of charge
- beginner-friendly
- reeds both RSS and Atom feeds
- allows feed discovery
- can be assimilated to Firefox bookmark (storage and live)
- allows OPML feed lists imports and exports
- customizable style sheets
- supports a wide range of locales e.g. Catalan, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Polish, Slovenian, etc.
- easy installation

Disadvantages:
- good for about 12 RSS feeds
- limited use to Mozilla-Firefox and Mozilla-Firefox supported browsers
 

RSS developers promise better features in future versions of their aggregators. Microsoft is planning to include a built-in aggregator in their next Windows version. These developments are definitely something to look forward to by all internet aficionados.

A GUIDE ON RSS TOOL
RSS is an abbreviation that has evolved into the following, depending on their versions:

· RDF Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.9; the first version of RSS)

· Rich Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.91; a prototype)

· Really Simple Syndication (also known as RSS 2.0)

Today, RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’, and it has the following 7 existing formats or versions:

· 0.90
· 0.91
· 0.92
· 0.93
· 0.94
· 1.0
· 2.0

RSS tools refer to a group of file formats that are designed to share headlines and other web content (this may be a summary or simply 1 to 2 lines of the article), links to the full versions of the content (the full article or post), and even file attachments such as multimedia files. All of these data is delivered in the form of an XML file (XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language), which has the following common names:

· RSS feed
· Webfeed
· RSS stream
· RSS channel
They are typically shown on web pages as an orange rectangle that usually has the letters XML or RSS in it.

RSS feeds can be used to deliver any kind of information. Some of these ‘feeds’ include:

· Blogs feed - each blog entry is summarized as a feed item. This makes blog posts easier to scan, enabling ‘visitors’ to zoom in on their items of interest.

· Article feed - this alerts readers whenever there are new articles and web contents available.

· Forum feed - this allows users to receive forum posts and latest discussion topics.

· Schedule feed - this allows users (such as schools, clubs, and other organizations) to broadcast events and announce schedule changes or meeting agendas.

· Discounts or Special feed - this is used to enable users (such as retail and online stores) to ‘deliver’ latest specials and discounted offers.

· Ego or News Monitoring - this enables users to receive ‘filtered’ headlines or news that are based on a specific phrase or keyword.

· Industry-specific feed - used by technical professionals in order to market, promote, or communicate with current (and prospective) customers and clients within their specific industries.

RSS feeds enable people to track numerous blogs and news sources at the same time. To produce an RSS feed, all you need is the content or the article that you want to publicize and a validated RSS text file. Once your text file is registered at various aggregators (or ‘news readers’), any external site can then capture and display your RSS feed, automatically updating them whenever you update your RSS file.

RSS tools are useful for sites that add or modify their contents on a regular basis. They are especially used for ‘web syndication’ or activities that involve regular updates and/or publications, such as the following:

· News websites - as used by major news organizations such as Reuters, CNN, and the BBC.
· Marketing
· Bug reports
· Personal weblogs

There are many benefits to using RSS feeds. Aside from being a great supplemental communication method that streamlines the communication needs of various sectors, RSS tools and feeds can also have tremendous benefits in your business, particularly in the field of internet marketing.

RSS tools and feeds provide Internet users with a free (or cheap) and easy advertising or online marketing opportunity for their businesses. Below are some of the RSS features that can help make your internet marketing strategies more effective.

1. Ease in content distribution services. With RSS, your business can be captured and displayed by virtually any external site, giving you an easy way to ’spread out’ and advertise them.

2. Ease in regular content updates. With RSS, web contents concerning your business can now be automatically updated on a daily (and even hourly) basis. Internet users will be able to experience ‘real time’ updates as information in your own file (such as new products and other business-related releases) is changed and modified simultaneously with that of the RSS feeds that people are subscribed to.

3. Custom-made content services. With RSS, visitors can have personalized content services, allowing them total control of the flow and type of information that they receive. Depending on their interests and needs, visitors can subscribe to only those contents that they are looking for (such as real estate or job listings).

4. Increase in (and targeted) traffic. With RSS, traffic will be directed to your site as readers of your content summary (or 1 to 2 lines of your article) who find them interesting are ‘forced’ to click on a link back to your site.

These are just several of the many things that you can do with RSS. The possibilities are endless, and they are all aimed at providing you with an effective internet marketing strategy for your business.

THE ADVANTAGES OF “RSS WEBSITES”
RSS - or what is now known as “Really Simple Syndication” - is a file format that is incorporated by Internet users in their websites to allow for ‘web syndication’, making their web content available in a format that can be universally understood by other people.

In essence, RSS is a ‘mini database’ that contains headlines and descriptions (a summary or a line or two of the full article) of your web content, including hyperlinks that enable users to link back to the full article of their choice.

RSS websites - that is, websites that contain RSS ‘feeds’ (articles or postings) - typically have colorful graphics to indicate to users that the specific web content is available through RSS feeds. These graphics are usually depicted by orange rectangles that are usually marked with ‘RSS’ or ‘XML’.

With its increased popularity, RSS is now being adopted and used by more website owners or publishers. Today, numerous resources are now available that aid Internet surfers (and even beginners as well) on how to set up and use RSS.

Setting up RSS feeds and adding them to your website can be a simple process that does not involve a lot of time or any money. Listed below are some simple and basic steps that you might want to follow:

1. Have your web content and/or news in an RSS feed format, such as XML (appropriate and ‘ready-made’ feeds are also available from other sources).

2. Click the orange graphic - this is the RSS feed icon. Take note of the URL of the RSS feed; this will be displayed in the address bar (for Internet Explorer).

3. Input the feed URL on your RSS feed creation program.

4. Click on the “Generate Feed” button. This will generate the RSS code for your web content.

5. Enter the RSS code in the appropriate place on your own website.

Having created an RSS feed for your website, next comes the task of publishing your web content and news and having them displayed on other sites and headline viewers. This is made possible with the use of RSS readers or aggregators.

RSS readers or news aggregators are used to view particular web contents. RSS readers contain the collection of ‘feeds’ or RSS files from content providers, and they are generally classified into 3 types:

· Desktop RSS readers - also known as standalone desktop application, they generally ‘run’ in the background and are similar to an e-mail client, collecting the feeds and refreshing items automatically as they are updated.

· Web-based aggregators - these are online services that enable users to personalize web pages, refreshing them each time the page is accessed or each time a person logs in to the service.

· Plug-in aggregators/readers - these make use of either web browsers or e-mail clients, which allow users to view RSS feeds while inside an existing program.

Having an RSS-enabled website provides Internet users (especially those who are website owners) with the following benefits:

· Allows users to generate up-to-date news and postings, as information and content in the RSS readers or aggregators are automatically updated each time the RSS feed is ‘refreshed’.

· Allows users to have control over the information that they wish to view or receive, as they can remove a feed of their choosing any time they want to.

Aside from these benefits, RSS websites are also useful for people who conduct their business in the Internet, particularly in Internet or Online Marketing. RSS can be an effective marketing tool for your website, especially in the following fields:

· E-mail marketing and publishing
· Search engine marketing and optimization
· Business blogging
· Internet advertising
· Digital public relations
· Branding and e-commerce

In addition, RSS can ‘power’ your website, providing you with the following:

· Valuable, updated, and relevant resources for site visitors and potential clients - RSS is ideal for websites that contain (and syndicate) a lot of information that has to be changed or updated regularly.

· Search engine optimization for the website.

· Increased traffic for the website - your website can ‘harvest’ and display information from other sites, driving more traffic to your own website.

· A wide selection of ‘channels’ for content distribution, such as PDA’s, cellular phones, voice mails, and email ticklers.

· A reliable way to have your web content delivered to Internet users and potential clients - RSS ensures that your site is viewed by the people who are interested in them, without having them blocked and ‘cleaned’ by ISPs or Spam filters.

These are just some of the advantages that RSS can give your website (and your business). The possibilities are endless, as more and more comes up almost everyday. Do not be left behind - take the advantage of the marketing and publishing power of RSS.
 

SEO Sitemaps Give Websites a Boost

A lot of web pages will find an SEO sitemap useful in improving their performance.  SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, the process that aims to create or revise Internet sites so that it can be better found by search engines.  The objective of SEO campaigns is to have websites appear in the top listing or first results page of search engines.

Internet search engines, such as Google and A9, maintain a very large database of Web pages and available files.  To do this, they devise a program called a web crawler, or spider.  This software automatically and continuously surfs and hunts content in the Web.  Pages that the spider finds are retrieved and indexed according to text content, giving more weight to titles and paragraph headers.  Spiders never stop navigating the web from page to page, to index the relevant content of the Internet.  Besides looking at the text of titles and headers, some programs are able to identify default tags and keep a library of these page keywords or key phrases in the index.

When a user connects to the Internet types a query, which is automatically interpreted as keywords, the search engine scans the saved index and creates a list of web pages that is most appropriate to what the user is searching for. 

SEO will use all the combined techniques of keyword analysis, smart code, good content literature, link popularity study and website organization to place the subject web page as high as possible in the list of search results in search engines.  Web pages displayed on the top of results pages are assumed to get the most attention, and therefore, opportunity for earnings for web businesses and pages with sponsor links.

Search engines usually return a list of results ranking pages according to the number of Internet sites linked to them.  Results can be classified as organic, or sponsored links.  Sponsored links are shown prominently because their creators or agents paid the search engine.  Sponsored links are the main source of income of search engines.  “Organic” search results are the lists of actual results from the engines index and are directly related to the keyword typed in the request.
One of the more effective techniques of SEO is the creation of a well-organized site map in a website.  Since the site’s main page and other content are directly linked to a site map, spiders can more easily move through the website, identify the key words of the content, and index these for a search engine.  This is where the SEO sitemap helps the website creator or administrator.

Site maps are usually pages filled with links.  These are shown as tables or lists, although lists are generally more effective.  Writing code for SEO sitemaps is very easy and simple to format and maintain.  These are ideally basic HTML pages with default tags, logical titles and keywords scattered in the Meta description.  Introduction areas can contain more of the keywords.  The site should have a main heading for every directory.

A simple list layout helps reduce unnecessary tags that might “hide” your keywords.  Some spiders give more weight to the following, than text in the normal body of the webpage:  heading text, content within link elements, text nearer the top of the page and the text written for a link.  Therefore, writing the keywords and links in these areas could somehow move up the web page’s ranking.  This goes for SEO sitemaps as well.

Web sites should be designed consistently, so navigation models should follow the flow of the site map.  Therefore, the first section in the site map should be the first link in the navigation bar. 

In an SEO Sitemap, and most pages, the headings contain title attributes where more key phrases in the site map can be added. Keywords are generally well chosen and written in the body of a webpage.  However, in an SEO site map with little text, key words should be added as much as possible.  As much as possible, web links should follow web page titles, and must undergo SEO during coding.  Care must be exercised not to cram the page with keywords and links, or the page will be interpreted as blatant spamming and not receive any traffic at all.

There is no way to guarantee that a website will be shown in the topmost ranking of “organic” search results for an extended period of time.  However, smart and responsible SEO sitemap techniques can be used to place the website high up in the search position.  Regular monitoring and adjustment of the SEO Sitemap and search results would ensure that a website is kept near the top ranking and receiving lots of web user traffic.

Sitemaps 101 – Benefits of and Tips on Designing a Sitemap
Have you ever wondered how a search engine works? It must be fascinating figuring out how this search tool could direct you to several websites that are relevant to your keywords. Or, have you experienced instances where the link that supposedly contains your keywords is not exactly what you have in mind? You would probably think that there must be something wrong with the search engine that it generated irrelevant results.

How does a search engine work?
Two things figure greatly in making search engines work effectively and efficiently: the electronic search spider and the sitemap.

What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is basically a page or pages that serve/s as a directory by listing all the links to all documents and files found in a website. It is not merely a random listing of links, but organized in such a way that it gives the web user an idea of how all the information that can be found in the site fits into an outline or framework. It is like viewing the table of contents of a book, or viewing the “concept map” of the site’s content.

What is a spider?
In SEO language, spider is not an animal found in your closet. This electronic search spider is actually a bot which collects data and copies content to be stored in the search engine’s database when keywords are fed into the search dialogue box. The spider reads the content of the site and sends another bot to follow the links and copy the content contained in them.

What purpose does a sitemap serve?
A sitemap like any other map gives directions to a navigator. It primarily targets search engine spiders so that they are properly directed to your site and to the links where keywords entered in the search dialogue appears.  As such, it is actually a useful tool in search engine optimization. A well organized site map would guide the spider to find the information it needs when keywords are entered during a search operation.

As an additional beneficial consequence, sitemaps have proven to be useful even to web users. Since a sitemap displays all the links to information found in a website, it helps the user to search for a particular topic in mind. Many users also use the sitemap to navigate between pages in a site.

What are the benefits of having a sitemap for my website?

1. No page would be left unturned
Going back to the purpose of sitemaps, having one would mean faster and easier tracking and crawling of spiders all over your site. As a result, search engines would surely get to the view all the pages of your site and not just the pages containing random keywords.

2. Easier navigation for site visitors
Once a web user has accessed your sitemap, they need not go back to the search engine page to look for what they need. If what they are looking for is in your site, then they would have an easier and faster way of locating it.

3. Potential advertising value
If it so happens that a relevant product or service company reaches your site, then it would be easier for them to see how best they can position themselves in the different pages of your site as a paid page advertisement.

4. Encourage greater traffic to your site
If your company website has a sitemap then potential buyers would have an easier time in accessing your latest products and services. Moreover, they would not miss out on any product that might be off future interest to them since the sitemap would display all information found the site.

How are sitemaps formatted?
There are at least three major types of sitemaps: indexed, full categorical, and restricted categorical. An indexed site map appears as an alphabetical listing or directory.
A full categorical map displays all links classified into categories; while a restricted categorical sitemap displays all links listed in a chosen category at a time. The full and restricted sitemaps are very similar except that the former displays all links in all categories all at once in a page, while the latter focuses only the links under the selected category for easier and less eye-straining viewing.

The most widely used format is the full categorical. Based on the results of a 1999 SURL study on sitemap designs, the full categorical format is most preferred by users since it is easier to search for topics within the site and it allows easier comparison between and among categories.

Some tips in setting up your sitemap

1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage.
This is to ensure that the spider starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page would be left unvisited by the spider.

2. Do not go beyond 30 pages for a sitemap.
Large websites having 50 or more pages should not go beyond 30 since this adds more pages to the site, and might make search engines think that the sitemap is a link farm. Also, this prevents overcrowding of links which could be tiring to view.

3. Check all the links listed in your sitemap.
It can be discouraging when you click on a link only to find out that nothing is displayed. Test your sitemap; click all links in every page to make sure that all links are indeed linked to the right page.

4. Give keyword-rich titles to sitemap links.
Keyword-rich titles give your site more advantage in being searched properly under the right category. But be sure to have this sitemap link linked back to the sitemap (e.g. back to sitemap).

5. Provide a short description for the links in the sitemap.
Doing so would give readers a better idea of what to find in the link and save them time on surfing.

6. Be consistent in designing your sitemap with the other pages of the site.
Employ a recurring design and the same HTML template for all pages to establish identity and build character to your website.

Now that you have learned basic things about sitemaps, maybe it is time for you to build one for your site.