Setting up a Custom RSS Feed URL

If you’re publishing an RSS feed as part of your blog, then the Custom RSS Feed URL is likely to be of interest to you. This setup option in the Blog page’s settings allows you to specify a URL other than the one RapidWeaver generates to be linked to as your RSS feed.

One such example of how this could be useful is the use of the FeedBurner service (from Google). FeedBurner provides RSS content producers with statistics on subscriber numbers, and a number of other feed-related services. More information on FeedBurner can be found at:

http://www.feedburner.com

Setting up FeedBurner in RapidWeaver

Before enabling the Custom RSS URL, you need to have correctly set up your Site URL, enabled RSS for this particular blog and published your site to your webhost.

With the site published, navigate to the page you wish to use with FeedBurner in your web-browser. Find the RSS link in the sidebar, and then copy the link to this feed to the clipboard.

Now, register with FeedBurner via their site. After registering, ensure you’re on the ‘My Feeds’ page (linked to at the top left of every page) and enter the URL you copied to the clipboard into the ‘Burn a new feed’ box. Follow the prompts on the FeedBurner site and by the end of the process, you will have set up a FeedBurner URL such as this:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/my-feed

Once you have got this URL, copy it to the clipboard and switch back to RapidWeaver.

Now all you need to do is check the box for the ‘Enable Custom RSS Feed’ and enter this new FeedBurner URL into the box, where the http://feeds.feedburner.com/user placeholder is located. Re-publish the site, and users will see the FeedBurner link, allowing you to use RapidWeaver’s RSS generation, but route users via FeedBurner to subscribe, allowing you to receive statistics on the use and distribution of your content.