using carp for rss feeds
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008CaRP is a free program which helps you get automated content for your website from RSS feeds on external websites. I have been using it for the past 2 years now – mostly to get blogs feeds or even directory rss on my website’s homepages.
RSS feeds are data feeds that usually contain headlines and excerpts from news stories, blog posts, etc., and a link to the full content.
It is , as the owner Antonne Roundy says, a script which converts RSS headlines and brief description / content into nice looking HTML to fit on your website, which could be made of HTML , PHP etc. I have also used it on the web design website, recently , but there i came across an odd situation.
Initially when i had used CaRP – the free version, which i downloaded when i had much less php knowledge, I could install it myself and configure it as well, without any hitch. Before CaRP , I had also used Magpie RSS feed parser for converting blog feeds at DiscussTV. Carp has provided somewhat much more functionality, includes good documentation along with a Video for help . Yet , even then if you can’t get it to work for your site, let me know – I can help out for a fee.
Anyway, after enjoying a free software, I recently went back to the website , after receiving several of it’s subscribed email newsletter. The site , which nicely showcases all the various other scripts and services made me eager to try out their paid Jawfish service – which provides RSS to Javascript conversion.
Why I wanted that ? because even though I want to display external blog feed, i did not want to use any framed page – as i felt , it could be unhelpful for my seo attempts. So the only option was to get the feed via javascript . CaRP website said, the only way i could get this was by subscribing to Jawfish – and here is something I DONT recommend from GeckoTribe.
Why : Because they will provide you with a snippet of code , including their javascript source , and more often than not , there is a lack connection between your server and geckotribe’s server . Quoting the owner , Antonne :
I can only guess that the problem you’re seeing with Jawfish is caused by some recurring temporary internet problem somewhere between your server and mine.
The problem with Jawfish i faced : I had paid them for 1 year of the service and it specifically mentioned that there won’t be any refund .
The solution : As i did not receive any sayable service – I emailed the owner ( as their support ticket section was not manned , and only after waiting for 10 days i understood ), and I received his reply . He promised to refund the money ,
Current Status : I have not yet received the refund yet , but I am hopeful i will.
Current Status with my requirement : I am using free and friendly Carp
which i have got working with iframe with the customizations i wanted . Google does successfully crawl iframes / frames , as I found by doing a site:www.websys.co.in.









