RSS Feeds
South Ayrshire Council is pleased to make its latest news, site updates, Events listing, Job Vacancies, Committee meeting, Business and Property updates available via spam-free and virus-free RSS feeds.
What is RSS?
Really Simple Syndication is a format for distributing news content. News sites publish via RSS then individuals and websites automatically get the updated content. Typically, an item in an RSS feed will only contain a title, excerpt or description, and link back to the original content.
RSS uses XML (eXtensible Markup Language) to describe different aspects of an online news item. This site uses version 1.0 of RSS.
How do I use RSS?
You can use a program called a news reader (or news aggregator) to store the locations of RSS feeds, and each time one is updated - you can easily see what's new. It saves you visiting web pages on the off-chance anything new has appeared.
Where can I get an RSS newsreader?
Popular RSS readers are:
You can find more readers here. Most of these are free.
How do I add South Ayrshire to my list of feeds?
Where you see this orange symbol or 
, you can sign up for an RSS feed. Click or copy the address in your browser window. You can follow the instructions provided by your news reader to add this feed to your list. See a list of South Ayrshire feeds at the top of this page.
Is anyone else using RSS?
Other organisations and councils are increasingly using RSS. For example:
Try searching the web. You can find lists of RSS feeds on sites such as Syndic8 and Moreover.
Can I publish the feed on my own web pages?
If you have personal web pages, you can use the feed to display South Ayrshire council news stories on your own web site. The RSS feeds themselves will need to be changed (or transformed) into HTML before they can be displayed on your site. There are essentially two ways to do this:
- transform the XML yourself using an appropriate scripting language or stylesheet; and,
- use a third party tool.
When are the feeds updated?
We update the RSS News Feed as soon as new relevant information is posted to our website. The feeds are never updated before the website since each item in the feeds contains a link back to the South Ayrshire website for more information.
As we update our site the feed is updated automatically, and your feed reader will display the headlines with links to the full news stories.
Who can use the South Ayrshire Council RSS Feeds?
Providing you agree with our site policy you can use the feed free for personal or non-commercial purposes only. They can be monitored by anyone with an RSS newsreader and an interest in South Ayrshire news.
Who should I contact with questions or problems?
Feel free to send us comments. We cannot advice you on technical issues for integrating RSS on your own website. Various resources on the internet may offer some assistance. For general technical information see "What is RSS" on XML.com.
If you would like to use our feed in a web page, we are interested to hear from you. Please tell us where the page is and what you want to do with it, by emailing the WebMaster.