The RSS <channel> element is where items are displayed. It is like an RSS headline. Channel elements normally do not change very often.

There are three required elements inside the <channel> element: <title>, <link>, and <description>.

The <item> element is where you link to and describe the update on your site.

The RSS <item> is where updates are show. It is kind of like a headline for an article. <item> elements are created every time there is an update on your site that you would like displayed in your RSS feed.

There are many optional <item> elements, but either the <title> or the <description> are required.

A RSS should include the <title>, <link> and <description> elements.

The first element is your news item's title.This give short description of your site and also your RSS feed.

The <channel> element usually contains one and more than one <item> elements. Each <item> element defines an article or "story" in the RSS feed.

Furthermore, there are several optional child elements of <channel>. We will explain the most important ones below.

The <category>child element is used to specify a category for your feed.

The <category> element makes it possible for RSS aggregators to group sites based on category.

The category for the RSS document above could be:

The <copyright>child element notifies about copyrighted material.

The copyright for the RSS document above could be:

The <image> child element allows an image to be displayed when aggregators present a feed.

The <image> element has three required child elements:

<url> - Defines the URL to the image

<title> - Defines the text to display if the image could not be shown

<link> - Defines the hyperlink to the website that offers the channel

The image for the RSS document above could be: