Ooookay. So my blog feed got messed up {for the first time, mind you}. All along I thought it's Bloglovin that's being stupid. As in galit na galit ako sa kanya to the point I tweeted pa my annoyance. Hehehe. False accusation, sorry naman! But can you blame me? My last published post in Bloglovin is dated January 22. I already made six posts after that..
January 29: 2013 at a glance
January 30: perfection ❤
February 03: blog chain: the liebster award 2014
February 04: rivercreek farm
February 12: late night whatevers
February 22: it's about time
I linked them up on purpose just in case, you knoooww, you wanna catch up with your reading. :) Anyway, last night I finally decided to face the problem and I found out that it wasn't Bloglovin after all and that the real culprit was none other than.. my own FEED!!
So what is a feed? A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Meaning, kay pareng feed tayo dapat magpasalamat kung bakit may laman yung mga dashboard natin. Likewise, if our blog feed gets caught up with errors, we won't be able to see our new posts in our own Blogger dashboard. Same goes for our Bloglovin accounts and our followers' dashboards and blog rolls. That's exactly what happened to me! The only way for my readers to find out about my new posts is to actually visit my blog. At this point, I'd like to thank Jun and Mae for having the initiative in doing so and for pointing out my blog's oddity. If it weren't for these two, I probably got stuck hating Bloglovin. Ooops!
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| common web feed icon |
So what is a feed? A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Meaning, kay pareng feed tayo dapat magpasalamat kung bakit may laman yung mga dashboard natin. Likewise, if our blog feed gets caught up with errors, we won't be able to see our new posts in our own Blogger dashboard. Same goes for our Bloglovin accounts and our followers' dashboards and blog rolls. That's exactly what happened to me! The only way for my readers to find out about my new posts is to actually visit my blog. At this point, I'd like to thank Jun and Mae for having the initiative in doing so and for pointing out my blog's oddity. If it weren't for these two, I probably got stuck hating Bloglovin. Ooops!
When we talk about feeds, two more words arise.. syndication and aggregation. I know right? Pagbigyan nyo na 'ko! Syndication.. from the root word syndicate, meaning an association of people or firms blah blah. So syndication is like the process of making syndicates. Web syndication.. refers to making web feeds {the syndicate} available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary or update of the website's recently added content. Connect, di ba? Aggregation.. from the root word aggregate meaning total. Simple as that! Aggregation refers to making the syndicated web feed accessible in one location for easy viewing. If I understand things right, Blogger performs the syndication and our dashboard brought about by GFC {Google Friend Connect} and Bloglovin do the the aggregation. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. God forbid, wag naman sana. :)
Moving on, there are two main feed formats.. Atom and RSS. The latter sounds familiar, noh? RSS means Rich Site Summary and is often dubbed as Really Simple Syndication. It is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet. RSS feeds can be viewed as plain text files, but they're really designed for computer-to-computer communication. Atom, on the other hand, is very similar to an RSS feed but it was developed to address the flaws of RSS. Comparison between the two loiters over the cyberspace but let's not dig deep into that 'cause my braincells are hurting already. Kidding!
Default Feed. If you are using a popular blogging platform or publishing tool like TypePad, Wordpress, or Blogger, you likely publish a feed automatically. Yep, that's wright! So feed illiterates such as myself can actually be a "blogger" without understanding feeds, syndication, RSS, etc. Although, FeedBurner's services allow publishers who already have a feed to improve their understanding of and relationship with their audience. More on FeedBurner later!
To see your Blogger feed settings.. from your Blogger home page > Settings > Other > Site Feed Section.
Moving on, there are two main feed formats.. Atom and RSS. The latter sounds familiar, noh? RSS means Rich Site Summary and is often dubbed as Really Simple Syndication. It is based on XML, a widely used standard for textual information exchange between applications on the Internet. RSS feeds can be viewed as plain text files, but they're really designed for computer-to-computer communication. Atom, on the other hand, is very similar to an RSS feed but it was developed to address the flaws of RSS. Comparison between the two loiters over the cyberspace but let's not dig deep into that 'cause my braincells are hurting already. Kidding!
Default Feed. If you are using a popular blogging platform or publishing tool like TypePad, Wordpress, or Blogger, you likely publish a feed automatically. Yep, that's wright! So feed illiterates such as myself can actually be a "blogger" without understanding feeds, syndication, RSS, etc. Although, FeedBurner's services allow publishers who already have a feed to improve their understanding of and relationship with their audience. More on FeedBurner later!
To see your Blogger feed settings.. from your Blogger home page > Settings > Other > Site Feed Section.
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| In Post Feed Redirect URL is my DEFAULT FEED |
FeedBurner. Everyone who has a Blogger account, automatically has FeedBurner access too. Cool beans! That's http://feedburner.google.com, by the way and simply use your Google credentials. FeedBurner is a web feed management provider launched in 2004 {and later on acquired by Google}. It provides traffic analysis and an optional advertising system. But for my case, I used it in troubleshooting my feed.
To check your feed's health.. from your FeedBurner home page > My Account > FeedBulletin > Click on the link you're subscribed to.
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| The topmost/recent line says it's all clear now, cause I fixed my feed nga. But prior to the fix, it displays a couple of error lines. |
What Went Wrong. Just so you know, there is a feed file size limit. Google support says it's 512K but the error message on my feed bulletin says it's 576K. I'd like to believe their support documents need updating. But anyway, the problem was that my feed exceeded the limit. *insert grinning emoji here* It's rare for a feed to be larger than the limit but when it happens the most common cause are entries edited in Microsoft Word and copied later on in Blogger. Note to self: Notepad can do the trick, skip MS Word.
Finally, the Fix. No brainer, really! Reduce your feed size below the limit! At dahil bawal ang swapang cool, I'll tell you how.
From any page of FeedBurner > My Feeds > Feed Title {or your blog's title} > Edit Feed Details
Change the Original Feed Address. My default was http://atasteofapple.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default and I changed it to http://atasteofapple.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=15. The max result can be any integer from 1 to 500. Click the button Save Feed Details. It will tell you whether you updated it succesfully or your feed size still exceeds the limit. Just lessen the max result until it no longer exceeds the limit. Viola! The blog posts that weren't reflected on your dashboard will finally appear as if you just published them. Fist bump!
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| woohoooo! |
PS
I'd honestly let you skip this post 'cause quite frankly, if I didn't have a problem with my blog, I wouldn't bore myself with stuff like this. Like SRSLY.
PPS
Thank you, Wikipedia & Google Support. Like SRSLY.
