RSS help

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

It enables the latest news and features to be sent directly to your computer, which means that you no longer need to check multiple sites. RSS allows you to see the information you are interested in, at a time that suits you.

Why should I use it?

By subscribing to an RSS feed, you can be notified instantly that new content has been added. You no longer need to keep checking a site to see the latest news. As usually just the title and a snippet of the article is displayed, you can see at a glance if it's of interest, before following a link to find out more.

How does it work?

Web content providers can publish a "news feed" or "RSS feed" on their website. To be able to view this feed, you need a feed reader or aggregator. This is a piece of software that monitors the feeds you specify for new articles and displays them in an easy to use format.  The feed reader can be a desktop application or browser-based.

How do I use it?

Once you have access to an RSS feed reader, you can start to subscribe to the feeds that interest you. Your feed reader will have a 'Subscribe' button or link that allows you to paste in the URL of the feed you wish to read. In this case, you need to copy and paste ' http://www.nbsgreenconstruction.com/rss/rss.xml' into your reader.

If you click on this link you'll see a page of code. This is what your feed reader will use to display the latest green construction news in a readable format. You only need the URL of this page – the reader will take care of the rest.

How do I know if a site has an RSS feed?

There are a several logos used to indicate that an RSS feed is available -   and are the two most common. If you see one of them on a website, you know that it has a news feed to which you can subscribe.