To understand what Really Simple Syndication means, let’s start with the basics. Syndication is the activity of republishing content that comes from a source other than the website that makes the content available.

Syndication allows websites to post any content changes that occur, including the addition of new articles and updates or removals of existing content. These changes are transmitted via RSS feeds. Content owners can configure the format of the feed and their content, which can be limited to providing only a summary report or enhanced with photos, the full story or article, and other information.

Browsing the information delivered by an RSS feed is advantageous to web surfers who receive a useful overview of the site that helps them decide whether the feed is worth visiting, which is easily identifiable because feeds usually include a link to the feed in the title of each update.

RSS benefits both web publishers and Internet users; The former can spread the word about site updates, while the latter can easily stay informed without visiting the website at first. If you’re a website owner that isn’t delivering RSS feeds yet, what are you waiting for?

RSS is for everyone and it doesn’t really matter what niche your website falls into or how often you update content. Even sites that are rarely updated can benefit from Really Simple Syndication as soon as new content appears; therefore, there is no need to wait for the next search engine to crawl.

As a reader, these feeds represent a great saving in browsing time, since once subscribed to a feed service, the browser receives the updates they want, updates that can be prioritized, categorized or filtered according to the needs of each one, but an aggregator is required for this task. Aggregators are RSS readers that are even available for free download or used directly from almost any web browser.

On the other hand, with RSS feeds, surfers take control of the information they want to receive. Overtime email hasn’t been the effective update tool that it was in the early days. Fearing an avalanche of spam is the number one concern that prevents people from subscribing to a newsletter, regardless of whether the subscription lists allow you to unsubscribe at any time.

However, with RSS, the reader remains in control at all times, whether to subscribe, unsubscribe or make selective choices of the content received, stopping the clutter in the inbox caused by periodic email updates.