Source of Information

RSS and Atom Feed:

Feed is a data format which is used to provide frequently updated content to web users.
Would you like to keep yourself updated with the latest content from your favorite website or blog?
By subscribing Feed, you can receive automatic updates from your favorite website. For this Atom and RSS Feeds are used. RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Atom is same like RSS. If you subscribed to your favorite website Feed, then they fetch updated content from your favorite sites in such a format which you can easily read in a Feed reader.

Atom and RSS are both a similar technology which was developed to help people to receive automatic updates of their favorite websites.

Lets have a look in a more easiest way to understand about website Feed.

It is one type of bookmarking. Before Feed, Internet or web users had to bookmark their favorite sites. To check any update, user need to visit bookmarked site. This creates more work for you as the reader. For update, every time you need to visit bookmarked site. So if you forget to check bookmarked site, then you could miss new content. Also, it is more complicated to keep track of many bookmarked sites at the same time.

So by subscribing RSS or Atom Feed, you are asking the website to send you new content, instead of having to fetch this yourself. It is somewhat like getting a magazine subscription. Difference between Feed and magazine subscription is: magazine is sent for defined time, such as once in a month or once in 15 days etc.., but in Feed, new website content is sent each time the site is updated. This could be daily or regularly.

How can you get updated content by subscribing FEED?

You will need a Feed Reader. Feed Reader is able to read Atom and RSS feeds from websites. Because in their source or native forms, Atom and RSS feeds are difficult to read, as they are in XML (Extensible Markup Language) format. XML is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. It looks like HTML. Feed readers translate this into something which you can easily read. I will looks like a webpage.

There are many Feed readers available; some most popular Feed readers are Google Reader, Bloglines and many more. Some readers are free and very easy to use, especially as they have detailed help sections. For example: using Google reader you can easily search your favorite site to add in Feed reader. No need to search it from search engine. Directly you can use Subscribe button from Google reader to search your favorite site and same can be added to Google reader.

For example:

Open Google Reader by typing following URL"http://www.google.com/reader/".

You can see Subscribe button on home page.

When u press subscribe button, it will display blank space where you need to enter your favorite site keyword. Here I have entered Keyword “earningwithoutpaying”. After entering keyword click "Add" button.

So that it will display list of “earningwithoutpaying” keyword sites. See below image.

By pressing subscribe button which is given under the site link, it will automatically added to Google reader. Now you will get whatever update available on that subscribed site. You can see all update from Google reader.

There are many Feed Readers available.The easiest way to learn how to use a Feed reader is to sign up for one of these services, then subscribe to a few Feeds. For both of these services, you'll notice that new items will stand out from those you have read, and also that the newest content will feature at the top of the page. This makes it easier for you to know which items you have read.

Have you ever seen symbol like below on the webpage at side bar or at the top or at the footer?

Last one orange color symbol is feed symbol. It is RSS feed. When you click that symbol, it will ask to subscribe it.

Here from one of blog: http://earningwithoutpaying.blogspot.in/, you will find Feed at the footer of blog post like below.

A post (Atom) is also a type of Feed. When you click on Posts (Atom) feed, you will get page like this:

In above image you can see list of Feed reader, from that you can select Feed reader and subscribe to it.

Now a day’s almost all sites have Feed subscription link.

How to unsubscribe from website or blog Feed?

We can also unsubscribe from Feed also. Suppose you don’t want further update from subscribed site, then from manage Feeds, remove it. It is like magazine unsubscription.

Benefits of Website Feeds:

By using Feed, you can improve your website ranking by keeping your content updated. New content draws more visitors.

Traffic increases for webmaster. For reader it is easy to get update from their favorite websites or blog, instead of checking it manually by visiting sites. Before Feed invention, user need to rely on bookmarked sites, now with subscribing to feed it is easy to get all update from all favorite sites at one place (means at Feed reader).

It also avoids Email Spamming. Some sites ask email id to send you newsletter or update. So we need to give email id for that. This will increase spam mail also. But if you subscribe to feed then there is no requirement to give email id, as you will get update to Feed reader. So it will reduce email spamming.

RSS or Atom: which to choose?

There are many versions in RSS feed. Now Feed readers are able to read both Atom and RSS feeds, though RSS is the most popular Feed format. When you create blog, by default Blogger use Atom Feed for blog post. The number of sites offering RSS feeds are growing rapidly and includes big names. Both Atom and RSS are good.

How to put feed on your website or blog?

Generally with blog you can select widget for Feed. Follow below steps. Here I have given steps for Blogger.com

Login to your account in blogger.com

Select Layout for your blog. Layout is the block diagram of your blog. It looks like below one.