IMDb News RSS and Atom feed guide

IMDb News gathers content from the feeds of individual publishers. To have your articles displayed in our site, you must give us your XML news feed.
This document guides you through our two accepted XML standards for your News feed, RSS and Atom.

Fields

RSS accepted standards

Atom accepted standards

Example item

Fields

If you supply multiple elements for the same field in an item, one element is prioritized in the order indicated. For example, mrss:thumbnail in Table 1 is prioritized over rss:enclosure, and the value for atom:modified is displayed rather than atom:published.

Table 1: Accepted XML element schema

RSS accepted standards

See: RSS specs, MRSS

RSS - Overall

Each news item ought to be in <item>. . .</item>. You should only have one channel in a particular news feed.

The following example sets up optional namespaces. In <channel>, all the listed elements are mandatory or recommended. You may substitute <lastbuilddate> with <pubdate>.

<!?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?-->
<rss version="2.0" 
    xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
   xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
   xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
   xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
   >


<channel>
    <!--Elements required by RSS-->
   <title>YOUR FEED NAME</title>
   <link>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/YOUR-FEED</link>
   <description>YOUR DESCRIPTION</description>
   
   <!--Elements required by IMDb. Dates in RFC-822 format-->
    <lastbuilddate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 16:10:58 GMT</lastbuilddate>
   <language>YOUR LANGUAGE CODE</language>
   <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://THIS-FEED-LINK">
   
   <!--Recommended-->
   <image>
      <title>YOUR PUBLICATION</title>
      <url>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/YOUR-LOGO.jpg</url>
      <link>https://YOUR.DOMAIN</link>
   </image>
   <copyright>YOUR COMPANY. All rights reserved. 2022</copyright>
   
   <item>
      <!--Your entry article-->
   </item>
</channel>
</rss>

Each of the following subsections lists by example, in order of priority, the accepted schema for each element.

RSS - Icon

<media:thumbnail url="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/ICON.jpg">
<!--medium, not type, must be set to image-->
<media:content medium="image" url="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/ICON.jpg">
<enclosure type="image/jpg" url="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/ICON.jpg" length="SIZE IN BYTES">
<!--You may put the image in your body, only if the body is in rss:description.-->
<!--The first rss:img is interpreted as thumbnail.-->
<description>
   <![CDATA[YOUR BODY CONTENT <img src="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/ICON.jpg"/>]]>
</description>

RSS - Title

<title>
   YOUR TITLE
</title>

RSS - Body

If you have both a and a field in an article, we will assume the latter contains only a summary and the former the full body. We’ll only take the full body.

<content:encoded>
   <![CDATA[
      <p>YOUR BODY CONTENT HERE</p>
      <p>"SAMPLE FOR MARKUP"</p>
   ]]>
</content:encoded>
<description>
   <![CDATA[
      <p>YOUR BODY CONTENT HERE</p>
      <p>"SAMPLE FOR MARKUP"</p>
   ]]>
</description>

RSS - Link

<link>
   https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337
</link>

RSS - Date

W3CDTF format:

<dc:date>
   2022-03-30T00:00:00Z
</dc:date>

RFC-822 format:

<pubdate>
   Wed, 30 Mar 2022 09:00:00 GMT
</pubdate>

RSS - Author

<dc:creator>
   YOUR AUTHOR NAME
</dc:creator>
<author>
   AUTHOR@EMAIL.ADDRESS
</author>

RSS - Unique ID

Conventionally set to article URL.

<guid>
   https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337
</guid>

RSS - Tags

<category><![CDATA[Action]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Oscars]]></category>

RSS - No. comments

<slash:comments>
   1
</slash:comments>

Atom accepted standards

See: Atom specs

Atom - Overall

Each news item ought to be in <entry> . . . </entry>. You should only have one channel in a particular news feed.

The following example sets up optional namespaces. In <channel>, all the listed elements are mandatory or recommended.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<feed xml:lang="YOUR LANGUAGE CODE" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
   xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
   xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
   xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
   >
   
   <!--Required by Atom standard. Date-time in RFC-3339 format-->
    <id>https://THIS-FEED-LINK</id>
   <title>YOUR FEED NAME</title>
   <updated>2022-03-30T08:45:00.000-04:00</updated>
   
   <!--Required by IMDb-->
   <link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://THIS-FEED-LINK"/>
   
    
   <!--Recommended-->
   <author>
      <name>YOUR PUBLICATION</name>
   </author>
   <icon>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/YOUR-LOGO.jpg</icon>
   <rights>YOUR COMPANY. All rights reserved. 2022</rights>

   <entry>
      <!--Your entry article-->
   </entry>
</feed>

Atom - Icon

<media:thumbnail url="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/ICON.jpg"/>
<!--medium, not type, must be set to image-->
<media:content medium="image" url="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/ICON.jpg"/>

Atom - Title

<title>
   YOUR TITLE
</title>

Atom - Body

html or xhtml may be used as type in either case.

<content type="html">
   <p>YOUR BODY CONTENT HERE</p>
   <p>"SAMPLE FOR MARKUP"</p>
</content>
<summary type="xhtml">
   <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
      <p>YOUR BODY CONTENT HERE</p>
      <p>"SAMPLE FOR MARKUP"</p>
   </div>
</summary>

Atom - Link

<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337"/>

Atom - Date

You must set an updated value on every entry. Date-time in RFC-3339 format.

<updated>2022-03-30T08:45:00.000-04:00</updated>
<published>2022-03-30T08:45:00.000-04:00</published>

Atom - Author

<author>
   <name>YOUR AUTHOR NAME</name>
</author>

Atom - Unique ID

Set your id to the article URI, unless you have another ID system. This field is mandatory on the Atom standard.

<id>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337</id>

Atom - Tags

Set term to identify the category and label as a human-readable text. label is optional.

<category term="the-shining" label="The Shining"/>
<category term="reviews"/>

Atom - No. comments

<slash:comments>
   1
</slash:comments>

Example Item

Figure 1: How your News item may display on the Site

Figure 1 is an example manifestation, subject to change at IMDb's will, of the following RSS item:

<item>
    <media:content medium="image" url="https://SAMPLE-IMDB-ICON">
   <title>YOUR TITLE</title>
   <content:encoded><![CDATA[
      <p>YOUR BODY CONTENT HERE</p>
      <p>"SAMPLE FOR MARKUP"</p>
   ]]></content:encoded>
   <dc:date>2022-04-05T01:02:03Z</dc:date>
   
   <!--Put multiple authors like AUTHOR 1, AUTHOR 2 and AUTHOR 3-->
   <dc:creator>YOUR AUTHOR NAME</dc:creator>
   
   <!--The instances above of YOUR TITLE and YOUR PUBLICATION link to the following-->
   <link>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337</link>
   
   <!--guid need not be the same as article link, but it can be-->
   <guid>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337</guid>
</item>

Alternatively, the following Atom entry:

<entry>
    <media:content medium="image" url="https://SAMPLE-IMDB-ICON">
   <title>YOUR TITLE</title>
   <content type="html">
      <p>YOUR BODY CONTENT HERE</p>
      <p>"SAMPLE FOR MARKUP"</p>
   </content>
   <updated>2022-04-05T01:02:03.000-00:00</updated>
   
   <!--Put multiple authors like AUTHOR 1, AUTHOR 2 and AUTHOR 3-->
   <author><name>YOUR AUTHOR NAME</name></author>
   
   <!--The instances above of YOUR TITLE and YOUR PUBLICATION link to the following-->
   <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337">
   
   <!--guid need not be the same as article link, but it can be-->
   <id>https://YOUR.DOMAIN/2022/03/YOUR-ARTICLE-1337</id>
</entry>

Do you have a suggestion for validating if my feed is performing correctly?

You're on your own in this department but we have had good fortune with https://validator.w3.org/feed/