Matia Bryson

New Research Tool: Shablast

This is a search engine that gathers the top 30 pages from Bing then ranks the pages according to which one has the most information. Sometimes in Google and other search engines, high ranking pages are sparse on information because their inbound links help them to rank well. This search engine is found at http://shablast.com/

I can see where this can be a great resource in researching information for creating new web content, especially when used in conjunction with http://gistweb.com/ for really hefty pages of content.

More background information from the creator of Shablast can be found at http://jonathanleger.com/how-google-gets-it-wrong/

Posted in Internet Business, Website Creation | No Comments »

Book Review: Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow By Jessica Day George

This YA novel is based on the Nordic fairy tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” This is a story reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast — a man is enchanted to be a bear by an evil troll. If a girl can live in an ice palace with him for a year, without uncovering the terms of the enchantment he will be free. Nice, romantic ending. Original elements like the girl being unnamed by her mother, until a magical white reindeer gives her a name. The scene where she shares her name with the man she loves is sweet.

Posted in Books, Personal | No Comments »

Displaying RSS Feeds On Your Site

Lesson Four (and final lesson I think)

Now here is the part I really love about RSS feeds. You can use them to display rotating or fresh content on your websites.

Why is this a good thing? Well, not only does it make a better experience your visitors, which should always be your number one consideration, it also puts fresh content on your pages which search engines love. Fresh content can mean better SERPs.

This can be content of entirely your own creation that you can cause to rotate and refresh as you want to. Or you can pick a keyword and go over to an RSS feed directory or the Google blogs search engine and display feeds created by others.

This is one way I have used RSS feeds on my websites.

I have picked a keyword, such as “baby crib bumpers”, (if that was the topic of a website) and put it in the blogs search engine at http://blogsearch.google.com/. It takes you to a page that gives you a sampling of recent blog posts on that particular keyword from many different blogs. In the left column you will see “Subscribe Atom | RSS.” I copy the link address for RSS it it will say something like: http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=baby+crib+bumpers&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss

Now I use a really nifty script called CaRP (Caching RSS Parser) to get the feed to display on my site. With CaRP there are a great many choices on how to display the items in the feed. One thing I do with blogs is to add a “no follow” to the links since sometimes something unsavory will turn up. There are also filters you can set up to try to prevent the unsavory from displaying. Some keywords are more prone to this problem than others. I always preview a blog search for the first forty or so items to see if it will be a persistent issue or not.

One great thing about CaRP is that when it displays RSS on your webpage it does so with a PHP script that alters/updates your HTML before the browser displays it. When you look at a webpage’s source (ctrl+U) you will see no sign of CaRP, but you will see lovely content in the form of links, titles and descriptions. This is a vast improvement over displaying a RSS feed in a javascript. With a javascript the search engine has nothing fresh to crawl.

Anyway, if you are willing to give it a try here is the link to CaRP, and this is an affiliate link, by the way.

One small warning: I personally do not consider CaRP to be a newbie script to work with. While I got it to work initially very quickly in its basic form, I have spent many hours ironing out little problems that have cropped up trying to get my feeds to display just so. One thing that has come up with CaRP is that I have decided to build all my webpages in PHP.

Posted in RSS, Traffic, Website Creation | No Comments »

How to Submit RSS Feed to Google Webmasters Tools

I have been asked how one submits the RSS feed to Google Webmasters Tools, so here you go:

Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

If you are already logged into your Google account, Adsense account or Gmail account, it will take you directly to your Webmaster Tools page without the need to log-in.

You will see a button with a “+” plus sign that says “Add a site…”

Click that and it will ask you for a URL.

To the best of my memory it next asks you to add a meta tag to your home page. After you have uploaded the change to your webpage, your website will be “verified” in a moment or minute or two. (I think there is an alternative method to get your site verified, but this is the one I always choose.)

Now when you go back to your home page within Google Webmaster Tools you will see your site listed. Click on it.

After a few days you will see some interesting stats collected here. When the site is newly added, there won’t be much to see.

Near the bottom right side of the page you will see “Add a sitemap.” Click that and give them the URL of your sitemap, or in other words, your XML RSS feed. I think it can take them several minutes to hours to get around to crawling your sitemap.

After your sitemap has been crawled and you go back to the Webmaster Tools page for your site, you will see a green check mark under your sitemap status. Sometimes after getting the green checkmark, you will occasionally see a red “X.” This is not something to panic about. I read in the Webmaster Tools forum that this is just one of those little glitches that happen and there is nothing to do about it. For no reason, your green check mark will come back again.

Posted in RSS, Traffic, Website Creation | No Comments »

Submitting Your RSS Feed to Get Your Site Indexed

Lesson 3

Okay, now you have an RSS feed on your website. Now you can submit the feed in various places. Here is the minimum of what I do with mine.

1. Google Webmasters Tools – Add site (must add a meta tag to home page) then “add sitemap” using my RSS feed.

2. Adsense for Feeds – Go to your Adsense account and submit feed (Replaces FeedBurner as a feed submission since Google bought them out – don’t expect newbies to know what Feedburner is, but sometimes you still hear about them.)
Go to Adsense Setup > Get Ads > AdSense for Feeds
It kind of doesn’t matter what selections you make on this page.
Just “Burn new feed” then be sure to “save”
Save feed url it creates to submit to Yahoo below also

3. Site Explorer for Yahoo – https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Be logged in to your Yahoo account, then first submit site, then site feed.
Also submit the Adsense feed url

4. http://www.feedcat.net/login/
Must add a feedcat button to your site

5. http://www.newzalert.com/

6. http://www.5z5.com/Feed-Submission/

7. http://feedyes.com/
paid rss fee service, 1-yr $20?
(I paid it, but not sure I will next year)

8. http://www.jumptags.com/
Be sure to submit as an RSS feed and “make public”

9. http://www.bloglines.com/
A feed reader. Also adds feeds to its index when a user adds a feed to their reader.

10. http://rssmountain.com/submit_anonym.php

11. http://pingomatic.com/
(I don’t know if it works, but it’s quick and easy.)

12. Google Reader
Like bloglines they will add feeds to their index that users subscribe to.

There are many, many, many other places that say they will take your feed submissions. Some people have software to make feed submissions. I have not looked into these. I also have a list of RSS feed directories that claim to take your feed. Last summer I culled my list for various reasons. Some are very strict and only take feeds from “real” blogs. Mostly I tried to find my feed submissions at these sites by browsing the category or using the site search engines. Usually I would wait a week first. I could not find my submissions so I considered them a waste of time.

Directories That Seem to be a Waste of Time:

2rss.com
blogadvance.com
blogbunch.com
Blogdigger
blogexplosion.com received an email that my site not a blog
bloggernity.com – feed listed but does not have live link to my website
bloghub.com – feed listed but does not have live link to my website
blogpulse.com
blogs.com – search function disappeared
blogsearch.com
Bulkfeeds
Feed directory
Feed24
feedbees.com/add.php
feedbomb.com feedplex
feedplex.com/add-url.php
feedsee.com/submit.html
Feedsfarm
Feedshark.brainbliss.com (and directories listed with it)
fybersearch.com
Goldenfeed.com
globeofblogs.com
icerocket.com- perhaps only takes real blogs, there were recent blog posts listed.
leighrss.com/rss-add.html
news-feeds.org
Newsgator discontinued
Newsmob
ngoid.sourceforge.net/ seems to be no way to search or navigate any archive or data
oobdoo.com
ontoplist.com- requires a reciprocal link, has a porn subdomain; so I won’t link to it.
plazoo.com
Postami
readablog.com
redtram.com/pages/addsource/
RSSmicro.com
rssmad.com
syndic8.com
technorati.com/ping
weblogalot.com/Ping/

If anybody knows of any other worthwhile places to add feeds, please chime in.

Next time I may cover some of the real fun of RSS — adding fresh content to your sites.

Posted in RSS, Traffic, Website Creation | 2 Comments »

How To Create a RSS Feed for Your Website

Lesson Two — Creating RSS Feeds

One of the reasons for having RSS on your site is so that you can submit the feed to RSS directories to get extra backlinks. I also use my RSS feed for my “sitemap” in Google Webmaster Tools. This helps to get all my content pages indexed by Google quicker.

I am trying to skip all the really technical stuff that I only have a glimmer of understanding about, but let me say that to create an RSS feed for your website you need to create an XML file.

If you use Wordpress to create your sites, you may already have a site RSS feed depending on your template. Look everywhere on your site for the term “Entries RSS” or the orange RSS icon. That link will take you to your XML page that is your RSS feed.

Now I know of about 4 ways to create your own RSS feed:

1. Build a blog using Wordpress (and there are other blogging platforms), and let it do it for you automatically as you create posts.

2. Build it from scratch yourself. Use a template. Be sure to validate the feed if you go this route at http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi.

3. Go to Hostmyrss.com, get a free account and create your feed from there. All you need are the URLs of the webpages you want in the feed. You should already have content on those pages because it will take about the first 250 characters of your article to be the description for each item of your feed. This is a new service by Jonathan Leger. I don’t know if it will always be free, or if it will always be available.

4. Go to Feedyes.com and get a free trial account. Create a “manual feed.” Then be sure to add your items (each content page of your site should be an RSS feed “item”). With this format you can choose what the item title and description will be.

For 3 and 4 you will need to copy the feed created by Hostmyrss or Feedyes and create your own XML file to upload to your website. Click on the feed url. In Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, press ctrl+U. (In Internet Explorer, use Page > Edit with Notepad.) What you see will look kind of like HTML gobbledeguk, but not exactly. It’s XML not HTML. (How do you like that for technical explanations? :p) Select all (ctrl+a) and copy (ctrl+c), then paste (ctrl+v) into a Notepad file. Save the file with an .xml extension such as “bluewidgets.xml” or simply “rss.xml.” Be sure to select “Save as type: all files” so it does not save it as a .txt file. (Also with options 3 and 4, you can change any links to Hostmyrss or Feedyes within the feed to your own URLs if you want to, but you could leave them a link to show your appreciation for a free tool.)

Upload your XML file to your webhost and create a hyperlink to your feed in your site navigation or at least on the home page. It is not necessary to use the orange icon. I usually use “RSS” for my anchor text. The orange icon is pretty and does show up nicely if you want to use it.

Well, that’s enough for today. Maybe someone else knows of any other ways to create feeds, and they will pipe up. Next time I think I will cover where to submit your feeds.

Posted in RSS, Traffic, Website Creation | No Comments »

RSS for Newbies

Lesson One -– What is RSS?

To get you started, I suggest you learn some more about RSS in general:

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/129

http://www.life123.com/technology/internet/rss/explain-rss.shtml

http://www.backinskinnyjeans.com/2006/09/how_to_explain_.html

I suggest you go get a feed reader, like Google Reader, and add some feeds to it from some blogs you like to follow, just to get a feeling for how it works.

When I have more time, I will give you the 101 on how I create feeds and use them to promote my sites.

Posted in RSS, Traffic, Website Creation | No Comments »

Book Review: Clemency Pogue, Fairy Killer by J.T. Petty

Summary: Clever and resourceful Clemency must travel the world to reanimate fairies she has accidentally killed.

This is a gem of just 120 pages. Illustrated by Will Davis, this book would be considered a “chapter book” for older children, I would guess.

I wondered if some of the writing was a bit too clever for children to appreciate; I really don’t know. I love it when J. T. writes things like, “The walking stick was not for walking. Clem knew that there were places in the forest where danger lurked. And where it did not lurk, danger squatted, couched, or lounged. There was one place where danger reclined, but Clemency usually avoided it.”

There was also quite a bit of humor in the book, although it did not have me in stitches, it brought a few smiles. I love clever writing about clever heroines, and I will be sure to put J.T. Petty on my reading list. Recommended for young people and all readers.

Posted in Books | No Comments »

Book Review: Atlanta and the Arcadian Beast by Jane Yolen, Robert J. Harris (Young Heroes)

Summary: Twelve-year-old Atalanta seeks revenge on the mysterious creasture that killed her adoptive father, and with the help of her bear friend Urso, hunts down the beast, meets the legendary hunter Orion, and discovers the truth of her parentage.

Although part of the “Young Heroes” series, this book can be read as a stand alone book. This book was an enjoyable read about a young teen heroine from a mythological Greek setting. I have enjoyed and trusted Jane Yolen’s work for years and I am sure the whole series is very good. I recommend it for young readers and all readers.

Posted in Books | No Comments »

Book Review: Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

I really loved the setting for this story. Wrede took events in American history and changed them to an alternative universe, much like Diana Wynne Jones did with her Chrestomanci books and British history.

The story takes place in the (pseudo) nineteenth century American western frontier. Magic is a daily part of life for most people and the challenges of the frontier include stampeding mammoth herds and worse. Years before magical geniuses Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson created a barrier to prevent these dangerous denizens from crossing the Mississippi, oops, Mammoth River, but settlers are still eager to take on the challenges of the new land.

Summary: “Eighteen-year-old Eff must finally get over believing she is bad luck and accept that her special training in Aphrikan magic, and being the twin of the seventh son of a seventh son, gives her extraordinary power to combat magical creatures that threaten settlements on the western frontier.”

I really hope that Wrede is considering a sequel or two in this setting. I recommend this book for young readers and all readers.

Posted in Books, Personal | No Comments »