OPML, Your Web 2.o Lesson Today

Article Writing & Marketing Insights

OPML, Your Web 2.o Lesson Today

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OPML stands for (Outline Processor Markup Language) and it’s an XML format for outlines, however the more common use today is for exchanging lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators.

Even with the amazing power that is OPML, only a handful of articles in our entire directory mentions it: What Is This RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom Business? By Meryl K. Evans, for example.

As an Author on our site, what do you need to know about OPML?

Absolutely nothing, because it’s a technology that we harness to make it easy for large RSS aggregators to slurp up all 20k+ of our RSS feeds in one big gulp rather than having us submit RSS feeds one by one to them for the first time.

Consider it another perk of being part of the EzineArticles.com family & system.

Why OPML exists for this purpose: Before we can ping an RSS aggregator about your new articles or new expert author RSS feed, they have to become aware of the feed. Exporting our RSS feeds in an index via the OPML format allows us to hand the owners of large RSS driven sites an OPML file to be fed directly into their system automatically. This results in less work for them and less work for us to accomplish more RSS awareness of our feeds in less time.

Did I mention OPML rocks?

What do you get out of it as an author on our site?

More exposure to your quality original articles to an even larger audience hungry for your content. We’re getting even more efficient at finding you more traffic and exposure for your articles so that every ounce of effort you invest in sending in your best articles creates the highest return possible.

The RSS aggregators also win because they don’t have to consume as much resources to offer their users a larger breadth of quality content.

Previously, we took the position that RSS aggregators should come to us and figure out where all of our feeds are. While that may be the future, today the OPML index file of every RSS feed makes it easier and less server bandwidth demanding to more efficiently exchange data between RSS aggregators and us. We both win and expend less resources to serve each other.

This concludes your web 2.o lesson today on OPML.
Any questions class? :)