Re: [syndication] Re: Redirecting RSS

["Bill Kearney" <ml_yahoo@ideaspace.net>]

> Actually, the funny thing is that I do have full control of my environment (ie
> I'm my own host on this) BUT, there is no directory that exists with that name
> as the "directory" is actually a php file that then processes a DB...

No biggie, just redirect that URL to the new location.

This is also a way for sites being overloaded with too many requests to build
the RSS file to cheat a bit.  Have a cron script dump the RSS into a static
file.  Then redirect the backend.php file to that new static location.  Or even
rewrite it so it doesn't even look like redirection is occurring.

> What I'm
> thinking of doing is trap the input and just Header redirect it to the right
> place. However, I was wondering if that was a better approach than an empty
RSS
> file with a single item saying something like
> <item>
> <title>Links are updated</title>
> <link>New Link URL</link>
> <description>TNL.net has been cleaning up shop and, as a result, a few links
> were rearranged. This is where the RSS .91 link went</description>
> </item>

That's the way many sites have dealt with it.  I might ask, however, what do
your logs have to say?  If you're not getting a lot of hits then perhaps this
isn't worth too much effort.  Dropping the URL is one way to break bad spider
habits.  They may still try to download the URL but at least they get a 404.
Redirecting them might just allow their bad habits (polling too frequently) to
persist.

> Plus the other cool thing is that the new links do validate on the RSS
validator
> (woohoo!)

Validation's always nice.  Glad it helps.

-Bill Kearney