Creating Customized RSS Subscriptions
Analyze a Feed
There are two ways to select a feed to create a customized subscription. You can start by typing a URL (e.g. techcrunch.com or feeds.feedburner.com/YourSite) into the Analyze field in the site’s header at the top of every page.
Based on what you start typing, our handy auto-complete feature suggests feeds in our system that you might be looking for.
Once you click the Analyze button, the feed’s Feed Details page will load. If the feed is not in our system yet, a message will be displayed to let you know.
If the feed URL is valid, it should appear in our system within a few minutes. If the feed URL is not valid (e.g. the URL does not actually have an RSS feed associated with it), you will see the same message when you try analyzing it again.
If a feed appears to be valid, but the system still won’t add it, please let us know and we’ll investigate.
If you would like to create a customized feed from one that you’ve already imported, click on the My Feeds tab, then click on the name of the feed you’d like to see details for. This will load the Feed Details page for that feed. (Make sure you’re logged in to the site first.)
There are three customization options for feeds: PostRank filtering level, word filtering, and tagging.
PostRank Filtering
To add or edit the PostRank filtering level for a feed, click the Show drop-down field. Then select All, Good, Great, or Best. The higher you set the filtering level for a feed, the fewer the number of posts that will appear.
When you change the filtering level, some posts will likely become collapsed (displaying only PostRank score and post title) and greyed out. These posts have PostRank scores that fall below the filtering level range (e.g. Great) that you’ve selected. To view a collapsed post, click the Show link that appears to the right of the post’s title, which will expand it again.
Word Filters
Word filters enable you to use specific keywords to filter a feed so that it only returns posts containing that keyword.
For example, if you wanted a feed from techcrunch.com that only contained articles about Apple, you would type Apple into the Word Filter field. The list of posts displayed below the customization fields will automatically refresh to show only posts containing the keyword Apple.
Tags
Tags enable you to create categories for feed subscriptions about similar topics, like “business” or “tech” (or “Ruby”, “photography”, “recipes”, etc…). Multiple tags can be separated with a space.
Creating a tag automatically creates a channel. All customized subscriptions in your account that are tagged with the same word or phrase are automatically added to that channel. You can see all your tags and channels on the My Channels page.
Editing Customized Subscriptions
All customizations that you create for a feed appear in the subscriptions pane on the left side of the screen under the feed’s name and URL. Each subscription’s selected PostRank filtering level and first Word Filter keyword are displayed.
To edit any subscription, click on it in the subscriptions pane. This will highlight that subscription and load its customized settings into the customization fields in the right pane of the screen. Add, delete, or edit your PostRank, word filter, or tags settings, then click the Save button to save the changes.
If you export a channel to a feed reader, the feeds in it will retain the PostRank and word filtering customizations you’ve created.
We’ve also created a short video to demonstrate how the subscription customization features work: