A few months ago, I downloaded RSS Submit 3.0 from BHW. Everything worked (or so I thought) and I was using
it to submit my feeds to RSS aggregators/directories. It wasn't until I decided to offer a service around this
software that I became suspicious of its effectiveness. I know it's an older program, but I have read many posts
here and elsewhere that still recommend it.
For any service I offer, I want to make sure I'm actually delivering something valuable to my customers.
So, I did a test submission using RSS Submit 3.0 and tried to verify it. Basically, to use the program, you enter
a valid RSS feed URL and an email address. Then select all of the feed aggregators to which you want to submit
your feed (I selected all 98 of them) and go.
Upon completion, the software opens a window showing a list of each feed submit site's return page, which
the software captured. I looked at each one and put the results in excel. Once you close that popup, you can
have the software generate an html report. I did that and pasted the results in the same excel file.
What I found was a ton of discrepancies.
At first glance, the results of the manual verification and the report were not that great (69% success rate),
but still acceptable for a program this old.
False Positives (indicates success when actually failure): 14
False Negatives (indicates failed submit when actually success): 12
False Known (indicates success or failure but no way to verify result): 14
Out of the 98 aggregators on the list, 68 appeared successful, 13 failed, 11 there is no way to verify so they
could be either, 2 required manual submission because of extra fields and 4 the software just skipped altogether.
But the actual results were much worse...
Looking at the error logs, I discovered many of the sites that were "verified" as successful in my initial
comparison had actually failed. The domains showed "server not found" and "operation timed out" errors.
Instead of trying to guess why, I decided to decompile the software and see exactly what URLs were being used
for submission and how the software was carrying out the submission process. I'm no programming guru,
but the decompiler I used extracted text strings and functions well enough to allow me get the answers I needed.
What I found was disturbing.
For each site, the software uses a URL text string to submit your RSS feed. Something along the lines of
Since this is hard coded in to the software, if any sites change their submission pages or processes, fields
or categories, the software would need an update to change that code. Dummysoftware/ksoft looks like it hasn't updated its site (and its software) since 2009.
What's worse, it seems that the program itself was generating some of the return pages from internal templates.
These are the same pages I mentioned above - the ones I thought I was viewing live (or at least captures of them).
That led me to extract all 98 URL strings and test them individually, as well as manually visit each domain.
It took a lot of time, but at this point I had to know what was going on. The results are as follows:
It's just too old - with the developer gone and no updates, that's it. Further, after examining what I
could make of the source, I doubt the RSS Submit ever really submitted to at least 4 of those sites.
Even though the report indicates successful submission, the software can only submit your RSS feeds to 12 sites.
If you type moderately fast or use roboform, you might as well do it manually.
It's time to find another solution for mass RSS submissions.
(RSSbot looks OK, but not sure of the update status. Sick submitter also looks powerful, but you need to write your own templates in their markup for each RSS site - may take some time.)
If anyone else knows of other solutions that work, please let me know.
WARNING: There are numerous Fiverr gigs selling RSS submission (will submit to 70+, 100+, 125+ RSS aggs, etc.)
using RSS Submit 3.0. Don't buy them!!! You get nothing for your money! (...and the sellers probably don't even
realize it because they believe the generated report).
it to submit my feeds to RSS aggregators/directories. It wasn't until I decided to offer a service around this
software that I became suspicious of its effectiveness. I know it's an older program, but I have read many posts
here and elsewhere that still recommend it.
For any service I offer, I want to make sure I'm actually delivering something valuable to my customers.
So, I did a test submission using RSS Submit 3.0 and tried to verify it. Basically, to use the program, you enter
a valid RSS feed URL and an email address. Then select all of the feed aggregators to which you want to submit
your feed (I selected all 98 of them) and go.
Upon completion, the software opens a window showing a list of each feed submit site's return page, which
the software captured. I looked at each one and put the results in excel. Once you close that popup, you can
have the software generate an html report. I did that and pasted the results in the same excel file.
What I found was a ton of discrepancies.
At first glance, the results of the manual verification and the report were not that great (69% success rate),
but still acceptable for a program this old.
False Positives (indicates success when actually failure): 14
False Negatives (indicates failed submit when actually success): 12
False Known (indicates success or failure but no way to verify result): 14
Out of the 98 aggregators on the list, 68 appeared successful, 13 failed, 11 there is no way to verify so they
could be either, 2 required manual submission because of extra fields and 4 the software just skipped altogether.
But the actual results were much worse...
Looking at the error logs, I discovered many of the sites that were "verified" as successful in my initial
comparison had actually failed. The domains showed "server not found" and "operation timed out" errors.
Instead of trying to guess why, I decided to decompile the software and see exactly what URLs were being used
for submission and how the software was carrying out the submission process. I'm no programming guru,
but the decompiler I used extracted text strings and functions well enough to allow me get the answers I needed.
What I found was disturbing.
For each site, the software uses a URL text string to submit your RSS feed. Something along the lines of
Code:
hxxp feedsite com/submit.php?url=[your feed url]&email=[your email]&name=[your name]... you get the ideaor categories, the software would need an update to change that code. Dummysoftware/ksoft looks like it hasn't updated its site (and its software) since 2009.
What's worse, it seems that the program itself was generating some of the return pages from internal templates.
These are the same pages I mentioned above - the ones I thought I was viewing live (or at least captures of them).
That led me to extract all 98 URL strings and test them individually, as well as manually visit each domain.
It took a lot of time, but at this point I had to know what was going on. The results are as follows:
- Out of the 98 RSS sites on the list, the RSS Submit software can only successfully automatically submit your feed to 12 of them.
[*]57 of the sites are dead (404, for sale, new site, no longer accepting submissions, one even triggered my NAV with a Trojan.Maljava)
[*]11 still work, but now have CAPTCHA or additional fields that require manual submission
[*]10 sites require registration (free)
[*]6 sites now require payment for RSS submission
[*]2 require reciprocal links
It's just too old - with the developer gone and no updates, that's it. Further, after examining what I
could make of the source, I doubt the RSS Submit ever really submitted to at least 4 of those sites.
Even though the report indicates successful submission, the software can only submit your RSS feeds to 12 sites.
If you type moderately fast or use roboform, you might as well do it manually.
It's time to find another solution for mass RSS submissions.
(RSSbot looks OK, but not sure of the update status. Sick submitter also looks powerful, but you need to write your own templates in their markup for each RSS site - may take some time.)
If anyone else knows of other solutions that work, please let me know.
WARNING: There are numerous Fiverr gigs selling RSS submission (will submit to 70+, 100+, 125+ RSS aggs, etc.)
using RSS Submit 3.0. Don't buy them!!! You get nothing for your money! (...and the sellers probably don't even
realize it because they believe the generated report).
Last edited:
