Validating Your RSS Feed

Is your RSS feed actually correct RSS? As you'll see in the next chapter, there are rules for writing correct RSS, and even using RSS tools to create your feed is no guarantee that your RSS will obey the rules. For example, the URLs you enter in an RSS document should be a full URL starting with http://(such as http://www.rssmaniac.com/steve/news.xml, not www.rssmaniac.com/steve/news.xml), and your RSS editor might not tell you that.

If your RSS isn't valid, the RSS reader might have problems reading your feed or working with it. To check an RSS feed's validity, you can use an RSS validator, such as the one at http://feedvalidator.org/. To validate your RSS feed, all you have to do is enter the URL of your feed into the text field (Figure 3.35) and click the Validate button. If your feed validates, as in this case, you'll see a congratulatory message (Figure 3.36).

Figure 3.35. Always use a feed validator before publishing an RSS feed.

Figure 3.36. If your feed is valid, you receive confirmation from the validator.

If, on the other hand, your RSS feed has errors, the validator will tell you in detail what the errors areand how to fix them. Very handy.