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I'm pulling hair out, i might pull a tooth out next, thats how frustrated i am.

I have deleted (for the purpose of proving a point) ALL my RSS files in my wordpress site http://baked-beans.tv

No matter what i edit, Google Reader reads what it wants, ie: the posts, and all it's content!

So how on earth am I supposed to edit the content which most of my RSS subscribers will view (since Google Reader is very popular)

If you look here: http://baked-beans.tv/feed/ There is NO content!

And yet if I add this URL to Google reader, it generates full posts in the feed.

Furthermore! If I edit say... wp-includes/feed-rss2.php I can see those changes within the RSS parser of Safari, Firefox, etc, but again, Google just shows the same thing, the entire post.

This really isnt on. If you go to Google Reader, and click on "Show Details" it says "Feed URL: http://baked-beans.tv/feed/" Which is just a total lie.

I really need to control how people see posts. The posts contain hefty video and a lot of images, and it parses the post in a really unattractive way.

Thanks in advance, Marc

RGBK
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    Google could just be going off of a cache. Do new posts appear? – Jeff Kelley Oct 27 '10 at 18:06
  • I havent been making new posts, so I'm not sure... what would i do about that then? I'm clearing my own cache each time, but i guess its there cache? How can i test? – RGBK Oct 27 '10 at 18:10
  • I see a feed at http://baked-beans.tv/feed/ did you put it back up? – CiscoIPPhone Oct 27 '10 at 18:18
  • Yeah i did now! but it was off... Now I'm trying to find out how i can clear Googles Cache... should I phone Eric? – RGBK Oct 27 '10 at 18:26
  • @RGBK I think Larry handles that part of the business – Pekka Oct 27 '10 at 18:35
  • Seriously though, I'm at my wit's end... the question is still actually: How does Google Reader parse RSS Feeds? I have now channeled my RSS feed through Feedburner, I've tweaked the pants off the feed, It ONLY shows Title when you click on RSS. When i check the source, there's NO post content. If I add it to my Yahoo page, it does what it should. Is this just Google Reader caching? – RGBK Oct 27 '10 at 19:29

2 Answers2

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I'm pretty sure Google is using a cached result because your feed is completely empty (which is invalid RSS, which is probably interpreted as an error condition, like the feed being down).

Try showing a feed that is valid, but empty. That should get Google to pick up the change sooner or later.

Community
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Pekka
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If you'd like to edit the contents of posts that were already crawled by Reader, you'll need to republish them with the same GUID (if using RSS) or ID (if using Atom). Reader keeps copies of posts indefinitely (so that it can show historical data for feeds), and it keys things off of the ID. If it sees a post with the same ID as one it already has, it'll update the content of its copy with the new crawled content (more details here).

Mihai Parparita
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  • But how does Google know they were any different if I press 'Publish' again on the post, and the post and GUIDis exactly the same? Is it date related then? – RGBK Oct 29 '10 at 08:17
  • I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but if the GUID is the same, then it won't add a new post to Reader's view of the feed. – Mihai Parparita Nov 02 '10 at 21:22