Search for newsfeeds

Question

I have written a newsreader for RSS and ATOM feeds and I use the SOAP webservice to allow the user to search for feeds. This worked quite well and the service returned lots of feed results, but lately I don't get any results anymore. I use the "feed:" operator to search for feeds. My query looks like this:

searchRequest.Query = "feed: " + keywords;

What am I doing wrong? Why don't I get any results anymore?

Answer 1

I'm facing exact the same problem since a few days. No error, just empty results. I also use the Web Service API like you with the feed: prefix.

I don't know if this is a problem or MS has dropped the old API service because of the new 2.0 API but ... i don't find any infos on that anywhere.

Would be great if someone from MS could respond to this issue.

Thanks,
Bernhard

Answer 2

I tried it now with the new 2.0 API - same result, with "feed: " prefix - no results.
Same feed-prefixed query over at http://search.live.com works fine, though.

Can anybody help us out? This is really frustrating as this is a key feature of my app.

Answer 3

I now use another way to search for feeds.

For example: When you search for "feed: freeware" over at www.live.com the url is:

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=feed:+freeware&form=QBLH

You can then append &count=200&format=rss to the url so the new url looks like this:

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=feed:+freeware&form=QBLH&count=200&format=rss

By appending &count=200&format=rss to the url you will get a newsfeed which contains the first 200 feeds that match the word "freeware".

You then just have to parse this feed to get the search results.

Answer 4

Hi Krai,

thanks for this workaround, seems like a solid alternative.

Although I have a relevant number of users that have an application on their mobiles that doesn't work properly any more. So I still hope for a solution from Microsoft. Think I will spent one of my MSDN support tokens for this one as the contact E-Mail-Address of the Live Dev team bounces and also here noone seems to respond.

I let you know if I can get any reasonable feedback.

Thanks,
Bernhard