Podcast feed question

incognit0 · Guest

Hi guys,

I have been experimenting with podcasting and have a couple of things up on my blog at http://dissidentvox.blogware.com/

http://audio.weblogs.com/pingform.html is requesting a 'feed name', and I don't know what to put in the text field. I know the url is http://dissidentvox.blogware.com/blog/Podcasting/index.xml, but I don't know what to type when the feed name is requested. Is it asking for an address (RSS or XML) or requesting the specific name of the podcast? If the name of the podcast, does it mean the filename of that particular episode, or the just a general show name??

I'm confused!!!!!

What I want to know, is apart from entering the xml address what other info do I need to give in order to be recognised by ipodder directories, and audio.weblogs.com. So far, I see no sign that my podcasts have shown up there..

Thanks for your help!
Rolling Eyes

incognit0

incognit0 · Guest

I have been entering info in various podcast related directories. It does not appear to work very often. Why does the xml icon associated with my blog not produce an xml page in firefox? With most xml links it opens an xml url.. That never happens with mine.

I am sure I am doing something wrong, but for the non geek, this stuff is a little confusing. Please help me get my feed issues resolved!! *beg* Wink

incognit0 · Guest

Sorry to overload you with questions and info.. but..
The RSS validator at http://rss.scripting.com/ returns the following error message when i enter http://dissidentvox.blogware.com/blog/Podcasting/index.xml

There were 1 errors, the RSS feed does not validate.
1. Server returned 404 Not Found 0 0

What's going on??

Your help WILL be greatly appreciated!

Lastly my Log-in in the forum is not working.. Mad

any ideas?

Thank you kindly,
incognit0

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

I'll say right out front that the best source of support for third party services is via their service and not ours. We do our best to be aware of as many services as we possibly can, but you're always going to be getting the best information when you go directly to the source. So if some directories you are submitting to don't show your podcast, you really should check with them to verify that what you are doing is correct.

That being said...

http://audio.weblogs.com/pingform.html is requesting a 'feed name', and I don't know what to put in the text field.

That's just the name, not the URL, of your blog or podcast. Just the same as explained on this page:

http://newhome.weblogs.com/audioWeblogsCommunity

which explains that a ping has 2 basic elements; the name or title of the blog sending the ping and the URL of the blog, not the URL of the RSS feed. So to fill out the form at http://audio.weblogs.com/pingform.html you would enter your blog or podcast's title and its URL. You would see the same type of explanation at http://pingomatic.com/ where they ask you to enter your "Blog Name" and "Blog Home Page (not RSS URL)".

In your case, I would suggest you send your podcast category URL as the Blog address (http://dissidentvox.blogware.com/blog/Podcasting) and not the RSS feed URL (http://dissidentvox.blogware.com/blog/Podcasting/index.xml). This is something we covered in an earlier thread (guess you didn't believe me Wink

) and is probably why your blog is not getting listed.

Finally, something that does not appear to be either generally understood with regards to the way audio.weblogs.com works... It appears that upon receipt of your ping, audio.weblogs.com will check out the URL you specified and determine the RSS feed by examining that URL. Then it will access your RSS feed to determine if there are any recent enclosures aka podcasts. If so, then it will pick up the info about your enclosures and update its list accordingly.

But how does audio.weblogs.com determine the URL of your RSS feed if you only sent the URL of your blog home page? audio.weblogs.com determines the location of your RSS feed by looking for information specified in your page's <HEAD> area, a section of your blog's HTML which is invisible to your readers (this is not your blog's header...) but can easily be examined by automated systems.

BlogHarbor blogs are configured by default to show the main RSS feed and not the category RSS feed in the <HEAD> area. If you peek at the HTML source of your particular blog, you'll see this:

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

I have been entering info in various podcast related directories. It does not appear to work very often.

I believe I have covered these issues for you now, here and here.

Why does the xml icon associated with my blog not produce an xml page in firefox? With most xml links it opens an xml url.. That never happens with mine.

There's nothing wrong with your browser or your feed, see this thread for a complete explanation of how and why we do things a bit differently.