RSS feeds and updating a post

  • camickr · Member ·

    I don’t really know much about RSS feeds so I hope I use the correct terms in describing my question. I just subscribed to my blog using the Entries subscription link that is part of the Meta widget that is automatically included in the Andreas09 template.

    When I initially publish a posting an RSS feed is generated.

    When I update a posting and republish the posting I am not receiving an updated RSS feed.

    Is this the normal behaviour? Is there any way I can force a new feed to be created?

    If you look at my blog, I don’t really care about updates for all my postings, only the “Recent Updates” posting which has been added as a sticky to the home page.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • sensuouscurmudgeon · Member ·

    I’m no expert on RSS, but as an experiment I subscribed to my own blog through my Google homepage. I used it to test a few things. If I update a post at my blog and then go to my Google home page and click on the title of that article, I get the updated version of my blog article. I assume that’s how it works for all RSS subscribers. When they click on a title, the see whatever a visitor to your blog would see. But I don’t think article title changes show up via RSS. Original titles seem to persist.

  • camickr · Member ·

    > If I update a post at my blog and then go to my Google home page and click on the title of that article, I get the updated version of my blog article.

    Yes, but that defeats the purpose of RSS as I understand it. The article may have originally been published a month ago, so how do you as a user know that you should go and click on the article to find the updated version? I was hoping to get a feed indicating the article has been updated so I would only need to reread those articles.

    Having said that, I may have found a workaround solution that will work for me. You can subscribe to an RSS feed for comments. So in my “Recent Updates” posting I can update the article and at the same time add a dummy comment. That way if I can get people to subscribe to the “Recent Update – Comments”, they will be indirectly notifed when I update the article.

    I would still like to know if there is a better solution that I am missing?

    Thanks for the feedback so far.

    You don’t know that the content has been changed.

  • sensuouscurmudgeon · Member ·

    The article may have originally been published a month ago, so how do you as a user know that you should go and click on the article to find the updated version?

    Your idea of doing it via comments is a good one, but few RSS subscribers will subscribe to the comments feed — at least in my experience. If I change an older post, it’s usually just because I’ve found a typo, so it’s not important. If something new of significance comes up, I’ll make a new post about it, and include a link back to the old post to put everything in context. Subscribers will know of the new post. Then I usually go back and add a link to the old post to mention the update.

    It’s a bit sloppy, but at least it works.

  • camickr · Member ·

    If I change an older post, it’s usually just because I’ve found a typo, so it’s not important

    I agree, thats why I thought there might be a manual way to force a new feed to be generated.

    If something new of significance comes up, I’ll make a new post about it

    Yes, thats another approach. I think I’ll stick with my “Recent Updates” sticky posting approach.

    but few RSS subscribers will subscribe to the comments feed — at least in my experience

    Well, at least I’ve given them an option.

    How do you know when someone subscribes to a feed? Is there a way to track new subscribers or total number of subscribers?

    Thanks for the feedback at least I know I’m not completely off track with my solution.

  • sensuouscurmudgeon · Member ·

    If you subscribe to the Google Webmaster Tools, in the “statistics” section they tell you how many RSS subscribers you have, but it’s limited to those who use Google products to subscribe. It doesn’t include subscribers using Yahoo, etc. And it doesn’t tell who the subscribers are. I understand that there are other ways to get more information, but you’ll have to search around for them. There’s nothing available on this website that will do the job.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    I believe these questions were answered about a year ago by staff. As far as I can recall, the post goes out on RSS once; it does not go out every time you update.

  • camickr · Member ·

    Thanks, I think I understand RSS better now.

  • sensuouscurmudgeon · Member ·

    As far as I can recall, the post goes out on RSS once; it does not go out every time you update.

    I just checked again, looking — via RSS on my Google homepage — at a recent post that I had updated with a new paragraph a few hours after it was first posted. When I click on the title, I get the updated post.

    However, I discovered something I didn’t know about. If (at the Google page) I just hover the cursor over the article’s title, a pop-up window appears with the text of the post, and that’s the original version.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    yes, when you click on the title, you go to the updated post. But it doesn’t send out a new version every time you update.

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