I note the rss feed output as per www.betting-links.co.uk/rssfeed.php
That one I ammended to point to the detail page as opposed to the external url.
That feed is ok for a viewer who wants to read it via a feed reader.
What I wanted to do however was suck feed data into an external blog site. eg picture the external blog creating a new post with a link back to the detail page.
( my reasoning.. helps spidering, helps seo, helps viewers find me via other sites, adds extra auto contnet on other sites of mine )
When I tried this however the blog posts contain the item title as post title and the description as post body ...but not any link back.
My train of thought was to
A - create an ammended copy of that rssfeed.php file for my private use & B - create a copy of the rss template file ( and have the ammended rssfeed.php copy reference it )
I would then want the description content item to have appended to it an extra line or two with something like ...
For More Info Click here ==> xxxxxx
where xxxxxx will be the listing title hyperlinked to the detail page
Any bright ideas on how to actually do this however? ie append this extra data to what appears in the decription element of the feed.
I used the principle you described but slightly customised to my own desired output.
It works a treat.
Just for the sake of anyone else viewing at a future date who might want to do the same below is a copy of my finished customised rss template
Nb as mentioned before the point of it for me was to create a custom feed that contained links back within the description text to the site detail pages in my directory.
Such a feed can be submitted to places such as external blogs I have ( and elsewhere ) hopefully this will marginally raise awareness of the main site to both humans and search engines alike. Every detail page will have at least one external link going to it with the listing titles as anchor text.
Genius or a waste of time I do not know
Suspect it might help marginally.
Thanks again for your help Paul Cheers Mick
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>{SITETITLE}</title> <link>{DIRURL}</link> <description>{SITEDESCRIPTION}</description> <language>en-us</language> <!-- BEGIN ROW --> <item> <title>{TITLE}</title> <description>{DESCRIPTION}<?php echo htmlspecialchars('<br><br><br />For More info click here -- <a href="{LINKDETAILSURL}" target="_blank">{TITLE} </a> '); ?> </description> <link>{LINKDETAILSURL}</link> <pubDate>{THEDATE}</pubDate> <guid>{GUID}</guid> </item> <!-- END ROW --> </channel> </rss>
Comments on RSS Feed Query
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 05, 2004
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 16
I note the rss feed output as per www.betting-links.co.uk/rssfeed.php
That one I ammended to point to the detail page as opposed to the external url.
That feed is ok for a viewer who wants to read it via a feed reader.
What I wanted to do however was suck feed data into an external blog site.
eg picture the external blog creating a new post with a link back to the detail page.
( my reasoning.. helps spidering, helps seo, helps viewers find me via other sites, adds extra auto contnet on other sites of mine )
When I tried this however the blog posts contain the item title as post title and the description as post body ...but not any link back.
My train of thought was to
A - create an ammended copy of that rssfeed.php file for my private use
&
B - create a copy of the rss template file ( and have the ammended rssfeed.php copy reference it )
I would then want the description content item to have appended to it an extra line or two
with something like ...
For More Info Click here ==> xxxxxx
where xxxxxx will be the listing title hyperlinked to the detail page
Any bright ideas on how to actually do this however?
ie append this extra data to what appears in the decription element of the feed.
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
Your blogging system doesn't offer any way to make use of the link field, only the description field?
You can make a copy of the RSS Feed template in which you change
<description>{DESCRIPTION}</description>
to
<description>{DESCRIPTION}
<a href="{THELINK}">For More Info Click here</a>
</description>
and call it with rssfeed.php?custom=yes&TID=yourtemplatename
I believe you'll need to replace the linking html's < and > with & l t ; and & g t ; without the spaces for it to validate.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 05, 2004
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 16
Cheers Paul
Cool that the custom template can just be called by appending it to the feed url.
re the &glt etc
I found a handy little tool to do this conversion at
http://www.primitivetype.com/resources/htmlentities.php
However when I use the template editor, save it and then relook at it
it appears to convert it back to normal html again?
copy of what I saved is below
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>{SITETITLE}</title>
<link>{DIRURL}</link>
<description>{SITEDESCRIPTION}</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<!-- BEGIN ROW -->
<item>
<title>{TITLE}</title>
<description>{DESCRIPTION}<br><br><br />For More info click here -- <a href="{LINKDETAILSURL}" target="_blank">{SITETITLE} </a>
</description>
<link>{LINKDETAILSURL}</link>
<pubDate>{THEDATE}</pubDate>
<guid>{GUID}</guid>
</item>
<!-- END ROW -->
</channel>
</rss>
feed does not validate however
see feedvalidator.org/check.cgi...6TID%3Drssfeedbettingblogs
your thoughts appreciated.
Cheers
Mick
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 05, 2004
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 16
above not quite what I saved
seems the forum converts everything back to normal html
I will email it to you.
Cheers
Mick
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
It's always going to appear as what it represents when viewing the template. One way to get around that is to use PHP in the template to encode it:
<?php echo htmlspecialchars('<a href="{THELINK}">For More Info Click here</a>'); ?>
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 05, 2004
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 16
Many thanks
I used the principle you described but slightly customised to my own desired output.
It works a treat.
Just for the sake of anyone else viewing at a future date who might want to do the same
below is a copy of my finished customised rss template
Nb as mentioned before the point of it for me was to create a custom feed that contained
links back within the description text to the site detail pages in my directory.
Such a feed can be submitted to places such as external blogs I have ( and elsewhere )
hopefully this will marginally raise awareness of the main site to both humans and search engines alike. Every detail page will have at least one external link going to it with the listing titles as anchor text.
Genius or a waste of time I do not know
Suspect it might help marginally.
Thanks again for your help Paul
Cheers
Mick
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>{SITETITLE}</title>
<link>{DIRURL}</link>
<description>{SITEDESCRIPTION}</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<!-- BEGIN ROW -->
<item>
<title>{TITLE}</title>
<description>{DESCRIPTION}<?php echo htmlspecialchars('<br><br><br />For More info click here -- <a href="{LINKDETAILSURL}" target="_blank">{TITLE} </a> '); ?>
</description>
<link>{LINKDETAILSURL}</link>
<pubDate>{THEDATE}</pubDate>
<guid>{GUID}</guid>
</item>
<!-- END ROW -->
</channel>
</rss>
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 05, 2004
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 16
PS
on the off chance anyone is interested see the above in use at
http://www.betting-blogs.co.uk/category/betting-sites
Any of the posts by user betting links are autosucked in from the feed as per above.
or for a precise sample post see http://www.betting-blogs.co.uk/big-mike-betting