RSS... What's the point?

I noticed that everyone has RSS feeds. What is the point of an RSS feed? Maybe I'm missing something but isn't an RSS feed just displayed on a page where you click to read the whole thing? Seems a little pointless to me.

RSS technology helps with syndication. For example someone can add your feed to his/her browser or a site that they use (eg. feedster) and know of every new article that you add to it. It can be also used by other webmasters to show to their users news from your site.

In any way syndication helps with the traffic of your site. Also have in mind that there are search engines that crawl only feeds

Search Engines Love RSS... Why? Many SEO experts believe that sites optimized around themes,or niches, where all pages correspond to a particular subject or set of keywords, rank better in the search engines.

For example, if your website is designed to sell tennis rackets, your entire site content would be focused around tennis and tennis rackets. Search engines like Google seem to prefer tightly-themed pages.

But where does RSS figure in all this? RSS feeds, usually sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often correspond to a particular theme or niche. By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can enhance your site's content without having to write a single line on your own. It's like having your own content writer - writing theme-based articles for you - for free!

Right check the yahoo submission site there is a rss option, too.

RSS is just an XML version like the google sitemap...

RSS is usefull for search engines and users, just think about the people that are watching the latest posts via the RSS feed without visiting this site every day...

oh, lol I guess it is useful. Thanks guys i had no idea what RSS really did.  8)

I've wondered the same thing myself.

If a bunch of different sites are using the same feeds - how can that help with SEO? Seems like all the sites would have the same content?

the latest posts are not about rss cotent but about rss structure (like a site map)

"If a bunch of different sites are using the same feeds - how can that help with SEO? Seems like all the sites would have the same content?"

i have a similar question too. if a page is ONLY showing content from other sites' RSS feed would it trigger the duplicate content filter of search engines?

i made an experimental site, designed to harvest feeds from many sites and archive it as html pages, to find out if Google and the rest of the search engines will index these too.

I believe that it would trigger the duplicate content filter, as there are man sites that display only feeds (feed directories, sites like feedster, etc)

i will find out if my experimental site will be banned from the search results maybe within two months and i will let you know...

You don't get banned for duplicate content, you just don't get search engine traffic for having it.

maybe... maybe not...

thats the point of this experimental site of mine. i want to find out the results first hand. afteral, its already online and have plenty of links pointing to it. lets wailt and see...

Good. Keep us posted on this :)

Use RSS for your users primarily later for your search engine.

Hi,

Probably rss feeds should be seen not that much as duplicate content
but as gathering of niche content from many places and making it easy
to follow it all for the readers of a certain niche.

One will never get banned because of using rss feeds. It's not only
the love of the SE's bots for the same feeds, but SE's should ban
themselves 1st for duplicate content before banning others.

I have a site (not a blog) that uses rss feeds from other sites,
and again - not blogs. Mostly other sites and yahoo forums and such
within a very specific niche. This site had a PR4 and only with the
last PR update it got sacked to a PR3. It beats me why really.

Than 2 of my blogs use rss feeds and are fully automated and
running themselves. These 2 are very new and I don't know how
they will do with the next PR update, but we will see.

Just my 2 cents.

It's nothing wrong to publish feeds on your site if you have additional content. I use a feed on this page for more then 2 years:
http://www.finalwebsites.com/news.php (right col)

never have problems with that

Hi Olaf, just saw the site of the link above.
I think it's a pity that there is no possibility to leave
comments on your posts. How come? It looks like
a blog, feels like a blog but it isn't a blog perhaps?
I am in The Netherlands too

hehe, the world is small or not?
it's funny, after posting the last "nieuws" this night I thought about to add some simple comment box because I like to know what people think about.

Maybe its time to open a second blog website for the dutch language (I think its less time then add some safe comment function to the site)

You will never get banned for having duplicate content, and duplicate content does not affect pagerank.

Check articlesaz.com. It has only duplicate content, and still has pr4.

Duplicate content only affects the SERPs