I Don’t Get RSS

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  thewhitelilyblog · Member · Sep 25, 2008 at 2:13 pm

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  Hi, forum elves,

  1. What is RSS–no, that’s not the way to ask because I’ll get a history and I need something different. What is its use? I added the widget because I know it has something to do with people getting notified if a comment is added to a post they commented on. Is it anything else? A guy told me he subscribed RSS to my blog and I supposed it meant he’d get an email when new content was added (but hopefully not every time I edit, which is practically continual and may soon qualify as an addiction).

  2. Given that I need the use of the thing, in adding the RSS feed, what is the URL they ask for in the dialogue box? Is it my own email? Or what?

  Thank you as always,

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  vivianpaige · Member · Sep 25, 2008 at 2:28 pm

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  You’ve been around here for a while, so you know to search the forums. This was just discussed a few days ago.

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  bubel · Staff · Sep 25, 2008 at 2:32 pm

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  1) The RSS widget will only display the latest updates from a particular blog or web site. If you wish to offer e-mail updates to users, you can use Feedburner. Please see – http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/10/11/how-can-i-offer-email-updates/

  This will send out updates to subscribers every time you publish a new post.

  2) The URL required is that of the actual feed (not just the web site). For instance, your blog’s RSS feed is located at http://thewhitelilyblog.wordpress.com/feed

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  thewhitelilyblog · Member · Sep 25, 2008 at 4:48 pm

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  So I don’t need to add the WordPress widget to have an RSS feed for my own blog to others? The widget is to update from other blogs?

  I went to the link bubel provided and did that, but don’t know yet how it applies to my own blog updating to other blogs, and don’t see any new links or widgets on my own blog, so am not sure exactly what I accomplished, or how to use it.

  I also searched the term as vivian suggested and found lots of other people who don’t understand RSS either and who are having tons of problems. No recent post answering my question, that I saw. I’ll just have to search harder, perhaps. Meanwhile am killing the RSS widget on my own blog.

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  raincoaster · Member · Sep 25, 2008 at 5:20 pm

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  This is what you need:
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  thewhitelilyblog · Member · Sep 25, 2008 at 5:32 pm

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  Thank you, Raincoaster.

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  raincoaster · Member · Sep 25, 2008 at 5:35 pm

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  You’re welcome. They do a whole series of great explanation videos for everything.

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  onegoodphotographer · Member · Oct 19, 2008 at 4:21 am

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  I watched that video and another one and I now understand how RSS works. However, how do I get people to subscribe to MY Weblog and WebSite? How do I get the little symbol that says people can subscribe and they will be notified through their reader about any new posts I make?

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  raincoaster · Member · Oct 19, 2008 at 6:25 am

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  Some themes have the RSS button built in automatically, and for some you have to add it as a text or RSS widget. There are instructions for that here:

  http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/12/24/using-the-rss-widget/
  You can just put your OWN feed in the widget and then people can subscribe to it

  or

  http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/put-your-feed-in-your-sidebar/
  This is what WP suggests you use instead.