Linking to Feeds

Unless you provide instructions on how to subscribe, simply creating feeds for the BU Web does your site's visitors no good. You will want to provide links to the feeds on your news pages and if you have a number of feeds for different topics, you may want to create a single page that lists all the feeds for your site. The Athletics RSS page is a good example.

If your department uses the News CMS, NIS can set up links to news feeds on your homepage and elsewhere on your site. For more information, contact NIS.

You also can create links to news feeds on your own, with the following two steps:

Step 1: Locate the Feed's URL

The first step in linking to a feed is to locate its URL. If you have administrative access to your department's account on the News CMS, you can locate the URL by following these steps:

1. Log in to the News CMS. If you need help accessing the News CMS, contact NIS.
2. In the News CMS, go to Topics.
3. Select a topic. The RSS button for that topic's feed is displayed below the Save button.
4. Click the RSS button to display the feed.
5. Copy the feed's URL from your browser's address bar.

If your site already has published links to feeds and you want to republish a link elsewhere on that site, you can copy the feed's URL from the page on which it is already published.

Step 2: Create the Link

To create a link to a feed on a page in your site, follow these steps:

1. In Dreamweaver (or another software you use to maintain your website), open the page to which you want to add a feed.
2. Add the following RSS button image onto your page in a prominent location where users will notice it:
   <a type="application/rss+xml" href="/link/to/your/rss/feed/"> <img src="/rss/graphics/rss-icon.gif" alt="RSS" width="28" height="13"></a>
   
3. In Dreamweaver, select the link and change the href attribute, using the URL you obtained from the News CMS in Step 1.

You should also include the a link to your RSS feed in the head section of your HTML document:

This will indicate to web browsing software that this is a feed associated with this page within the site.

Linking to "What is RSS?"

As of today, many Internet users are unfamiliar with RSS and how to use it. To assist your site visitors, you should provide a link to the What is RSS? page which is maintained by NIS.