How does a website like Macsurfer work?

tinktink
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Do sites that list new news links throughout the day use some sort of spider that crawls the internet looking for relevant articles or do they rely on RSS feeds and a custom CGI, or both? \ \



Does anyone know how Macsurfer's Headline News works, for example?



Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    Wild guess: RSS feeds entered into a DB (which purges old stories once a week or so) which then searches the entries for Steve Jobs/iPod/Apple/Powerbook/WWDC/etc.



    That's my take after glancing at the headlines.



    It is definitely _not_ a spider.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    Any idea on how to implement this?



    I'd like to do a links page for a web site down the road that list news for sports.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    lgnomelgnome Posts: 81member
    hi,



    RSS feeds are definately the way to do this.. if you google RSS feed or xml feed.. you'll find the answers.



    this is a good place to start too:

    http://www.alistapart.com/xmlfeed/



    cya.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by LGnome

    hi,



    RSS feeds are definately the way to do this.. if you google RSS feed or xml feed.. you'll find the answers.



    this is a good place to start too:

    http://www.alistapart.com/xmlfeed/



    cya.



    Thanks for the link! I'll do some reading up and see if I can figure out how to get the right info I'm looking for from a feed and if I can set up some sort of automated posting for new links into my page.
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