MSN feed setup and configuration

Set up your feed to ensure successful ingestion into MSN. This guide outlines required formats, supported protocols, authentication options, and best practices for feed delivery.

Supported feed formats

MSN supports the following feed types:

RSS 2.0
ATOM

Each feed must use UTF-8 encoding by default or specify another valid format in the XML prolog.

Secure feed delivery

Only HTTPS feed URLs are supported.
TLS/SSL encryption is required.
IP listing is not supported.
Feeds with usernames or passwords in URLs will be rejected.

Authentication options

Authentication is optional but supported:

MSN supports basic authentication as specified in RFC 7517. To add basic authentication to your feed, provide:

Username
Password
Secure HTTPS feed URL

To add OAuth 2.0 authentication to your feed, provide:

Security token server URL
Client_ID
Grant_Type
Scope (optional; used to indicate access level. This value will be sent as-is)
Secured feed URL

Document encoding

MSN uses UTF-8 encoding by default. You can override this by declaring a different encoding in your XML declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

Feed size limits and error handling

Maximum feed size is 10MB.
Maximum image size is 14MB.

MSN recommends maintaining a feed size of less than 30 fresh items at all times, but you can use ATOM’s Feed paging feature to enable sliding window ingestion of your feed.

MSN automatically triggers an escalation if ingested content is more than three days old. If you have different content age requirements, contact us at partnerhubsupport@microsoft.com. MSN re-tries feeds that have errors, but if the errors persist you will be notified to investigate. MSN automatically turns off content ingestion from feeds that remain in an error state for a prolonged period of time.

Extending feed metadata

You can extend feed vocabulary and terms in XML-based feeds along with their recommended prefix. MSN only recognizes elements and attributes explicitly specified in the listed code examples. Any unsupported namespace will be ignored.

Extension name	Prefix	Namespace
Media RSS	media	http:⁠//search.yahoo.com/mrss/
Dublin Core Metadata	dc	http:⁠//purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
Dublin Core Terms	dcterms	http:⁠//purl.org/dc/terms/
Proprietary Microsoft Ingestion Services	mi	http:⁠//schemas.ingestion.microsoft.com/common/

Geographic market publishing policy

MSN Partners will have their content published in the market for which they signed the contract, with the exception of Canada. Canadian partners may choose to publish their content in both the English and French markets.

Hosting and quality requirements for media files (Images and Video)

RSS Item Image Specification

Publishers should explicitly provide one high-quality thumbnail for every RSS <item> by using a Media RSS <media:thumbnail> element directly under the item.

Required format

Declare the Media RSS namespace on the RSS root element:

 <rss
  version="2.0"
  xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
  xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/">

For each item, use this preferred structure:

 <item>
  ...
  <media:thumbnail
    url="https://publisher.example.com/images/story-thumbnail.jpg"
    type="image/jpeg" /> 
  ...
 </item>

The url attribute must contain the direct image URL. The type attribute should contain the image MIME type, such as image/jpeg, image/png, or image/webp.

Image Requirements

Include exactly one <media:thumbnail> per <item>.
Place <media:thumbnail> directly at the item level. Do not place the primary thumbnail only inside <media:content>, <media:group>, a related <link>, the description, or another nested element. The item-level element is prioritized.
Provide a direct, publicly accessible image URL that does not require authentication, cookies, or a referring page.
Use HTTPS and return the image itself with a successful HTTP response. Do not use a URL that redirects to an HTML page, consent screen, placeholder, or sign-in experience.
Keep the image URL accessible for at least 24 hours after the item is published or updated.
Use a high-quality source image. For landscape images, a resolution of at least 1000x600 is recommended. For vertical content (video reels/shorts) 300px wide is recommended.
Preserve the image’s natural aspect ratio. Do not stretch, crop out the main subject, or upscale a small source image to satisfy the minimum dimensions.
Use JPEG (image/jpeg), PNG (image/png), or WebP (image/webp). The file extension, encoded file format, HTTP Content-Type, and the thumbnail’s type attribute should agree.
Encode photographs as high-quality JPEG or WebP and graphics that require transparency or lossless detail as PNG or WebP.
Do not use animated / low-color GIFs, heavily compressed JPEGs, posterized PNGs, or other visibly degraded images. If the source is animated (e.g. video), provide a high-quality static representative image as the thumbnail.
Apply EXIF orientation as needed before delivery so that the image renders in the correct orientation even when metadata is ignored.
Image files may be up to 15 MB.
Do not send images that are blurry, pixelated, distorted, corrupted, mostly blank, or dominated by borders, watermarks, logos, or overlaid text.
Avoid custom URL resizing or compression parameters that produce a small image or cause lossy re-encoding. Prefer a stable URL for the original high-quality image.

Item examples

The following generic examples show articles, videos, and slideshow feed items. Only fields relevant to thumbnail placement are shown.

Article

 <item>
  <title>Community opens a new public park downtown</title>
   <link>https://publisher.example.com/news/new-public-park-opens</link> 
  <media:thumbnail
    url="https://publisher.example.com/images/new-public-park.jpg"
    type="image/jpeg" />
  <content:encoded>
    <![CDATA[
      <p>Residents gathered downtown to celebrate the opening of a new public park.</p>
    ]]>
  </content:encoded>
  <description>...</description>
</item>

Video

The item-level thumbnail represents the video in feed and discovery experiences. Video metadata can remain inside <media:content>, but the primary thumbnail should not be nested there.

 <item>
  <title>Highlights from the regional championship</title>
   <link>https://publisher.example.com/videos/regional-championship-highlights</link> 
  <media:thumbnail
    url="https://publisher.example.com/images/regional-championship.jpg"
    type="image/jpeg" />
  <media:content
    url="https://publisher.example.com/media/regional-championship.mp4"
    medium="video"
    type="video/mp4"
    duration="56">
    <media:title>Highlights from the regional championship</media:title>
  </media:content>
</item>

Slideshow

Use one representative image as the item-level thumbnail. Images belonging to the slideshow may still be supplied separately, but they must not create multiple primary item thumbnails.

 <item>
  <title>Scenes from the annual city arts festival</title>
  <link>https://publisher.example.com/photos/city-arts-festival</link>
  <media:thumbnail
    url="https://publisher.example.com/images/city-arts-festival.jpg"
    type="image/jpeg" />
  <description>...</description>
</item>

Do not use

 <!-- Do not send multiple item thumbnails. --> 
 <item>
  <media:thumbnail url="https://publisher.example.com/image-small.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
  <media:thumbnail url="https://publisher.example.com/image-large.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
</item>
<!-- Do not provide the primary thumbnail only as a nested element. -->
<item>
  <media:content url="https://publisher.example.com/video.mp4" type="video/mp4">
    <media:thumbnail url="https://publisher.example.com/image.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
  </media:content>
</item>

Supported links

Video files need to be saved in an approved format, such as an MP4 file. Files are allowed if they are from your own website or hosted on a server such as AWS.

Unsupported links

Dropbox links, YouTube links, etc., are not supported in RSS feeds. This is because the video cannot easily nor immediately pull from those links as they are ‘gated’.

For more details, refer to the Feed content specifications.