Advertisers: how to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub

Transcription

1 Application Note Advertisers: how to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub Version 1.0.1

2 Introduction Topic Reactivpub, an affiliation platform based on the R-ADServer technology developed by the R corporation, allows affiliates (or broadcasters: internet sites that want to profit from their available advertising space) to be connected to advertising sites that want to promote or sell their products. Different technical and financial models exist to allow broadcasting ads. They differ most distinctly in how they are implemented. This document is targeted at advertisers on the Reactivpub platform: it presents the advantages and describes the technical aspects of implementing an RSS feed within the framework of a campaign. Who is this document for? This document is targeted at advertisers (or future advertisers) on the Reactivpub platform who wants to broadcast their products using RSS feeds. Warnings Despite all the care we took in developing this document, it might still contain errors. Kindly send all comments or questions to production@r-advertising.com. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 2

3 RSS feeds What is RSS? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a contents syndication format for the Web. Contents syndication means offering information to users (for instance, news concerning ad campaigns, or parts of the contents of a web site) in a precise format that is easy to manage. RSS is most often used as an RSS feed. This is simply an RSS-format file that was generated by the site and is dispatched on-demand to the client. News Medias People Good deals Sales Travel Culture Sport Sciences Technically, RSS corresponds to a number of formats based on the XML standard. Any RSS file must conform to the XML 1.0 specs as edited by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, Note that conforming to the standard is a key element when providing data in the RSS format. In this document, we will use the term RSS feed to describe the format of the feed or an RSS-formatted file. Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 3

4 Example of an RSS feed Here is an example of an RSS feed: <?xml version="1.0"?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>this is the title of my RSS feed</title> <link> <description>description of my site.</description> <item> <title>my first item</title> <link> <description>description of first item</description> <pubdate>date it was added to the catalog</pubdate> </item> <item> <title>my second item</title> <link> <description>description of second item</description> <pubdate>date it was added to the catalog</pubdate> </item> </channel> </rss> Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 4

5 Structure and Contents of an RSS Feed We will only introduce here the main elements of an RSS feed. You can identify all the authorized parameters by reading the RSS 2.01 specs on Note: Some parameters noted as optional in the official specs might nevertheless be compulsory for broadcasting on our network. They will be introduced as compulsory in this document. Overall Structure An RSS feed is mainly made up of: - A header containing elements that flag the XML and RSS version regarding the contents of your feed. Our recommendation is to use the following values: <?xml version="1.0"?> <rss version="2.0"> </rss> - The feed contents itself, described in the <channel> element and its sub-elements: o o Elements describing the overall characteristics of the feed (<title>, <link> ) <item> elements that describe each item present in the feed Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 5

6 <channel> element (description of the feed) Insert these elements below <channel> and before the first <item> tag. Elements below are compulsory: Compulsory elements title link description Role, possible values Defines the title of the RSS feed <title>this is the title of my RSS feed</title> Defines the URL of your web site <link> Must provide a description of what you offer <description>description of my site</description> Elements below are not compulsory: Non-compulsory elements image language Role, possible values Lets you insert your logo in the RSS feed. The image must be a GIF, JPEG or PNG file. <image> <url> <width>500</width> <height>120</height> <link> </image> Lets you define the language for your RSS feed. <language>fr</language> ttl Number of minutes indicating how long an RSS feed can stay in memory or in the cache before it is refreshed from the source. For instance, if you regenerate your feed every hour, specify a ttl of 60 in order to limit the number of requests sent to your server. <ttl>60</ttl> Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 6

7 Elements in <item> (description of the elements) Each one of your products/items must be presented with an <item>. The elements described below must be inserted in each tag (between <item> and </item>). Your feed can contain as many <item> as you wish, but the more items you list, the longer it will take to display and process the feed. Elements below are compulsory: Compulsory elements title Role, possible values Defines the name of the item (=the product). <title>the name of my product</title> link description Defines the URL pointing to your product. <link> link> Must hold a description of the item. This element may use HTML code, as long as it is surrounded by CDATA section delimiters. <description> <![CDATA[<div>Description of the product.</div>]]> </description> Elements below are not compulsory: Non-compulsory elements pubdate Role, possible values Defines the date when the item was added to the feed (or the creation date for the product). This field is used to figure out which items were added recently to the feed. It is best to use the MM/DD/YYYY format (for September 20 th, 2007: 09/20/2007) <pubdate>09/20/2007</pubdate> category guid Defines the category of the item. It could be a destination country for a trip, or a category of products (TVs, shirts, ) Some programs, like Internet Explorer 7, provide specific functionalities that let one sort items from the feed based on category. <category>shirts</category> Lets you define a unique identifier for the item (an item number, for instance.) Some aggregators use this information to figure out which items are new. <guid>01555em222a</guid> Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 7

8 Advice to help you create your feeds It is best to pay attention to the following tips: - Do not randomly generate the products that make up your feed. The consequence would be that new products could not be detected. - Although in theory a feed can hold a large number of items, it is best to create several focused feeds that hold fewer items (flash sales, reduced items, one feed per category) rather than group everything within a single feed. There is no limit to the number of feeds allowed. Advertisers How to provide an RSS feed to Reactivpub 8