RSS items

For each item in an RSS feed, the <item> tag is used (within the <channel> tag). There are three required child tags for the <item> tag:

<title> - sets the title of the item
<link> - specifies the URL where the item content can be found
<description> - sets a description for the item

We discussed the core aspects of the <item> tag in the RSS structure tutorial, but there is much more you can do with it. Besides it's required elements, the <item> tag has a bunch of optional elements.

author

Specifies the email address of the author of an RSS item.

Example:

<author>admin@landofcode.com</author>

NOTE: Including the author element in an RSS file may result in spam.

comments

Specifies a URL where comments about an RSS item can be found.

Example:

<comments>http://www.landofcode.com/rss/comments.php</comments>

A complete RSS file with optional and required elements for the <item> tag:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Landofcode.com web tutorials updates</title> <link>http://www.landofcode.com</link> <description>Web development tutorials</description> <item> <title>Online code editor</title> <link>http://www.landofcode.com/online-code-editor.php</link> <description>New functionality added to the code editor. Check it out!</description> <comments>http://www.landofcode.com/rss/comments.php</comments> </item> <item> <title>Errors fixed</title> <link>http://www.landofcode.com</link> <description>Fixed a bunch of errors. Site runs much better now</description> <author>admin@landofcode.com</author> </item> <item> <title>HTML tutorials</title> <link>http://www.landofcode.com/html-tutorials/</link> <description>Five new tutorials added to the HTML tutorials section.</description> <category>HTML tutorial</category> </item> </channel> </rss>

For a full list of item elements (optional and required) check out our RSS item elements reference page.