Submitting Content to Vast

Overview

If you have a single listing, please post it to one of the many sites that already supply data to Vast such as vFlyer or Postlets. If you have a site or service with many listings, you can supply us with a feed file. A feed file is a dump of your listing data in a format that's easy for our system to understand. We can handle feed files in almost any structured format, but XML is the best. If you're already generating a feed file from your data, we can almost undoubtedly use it without modification. See below for more information on feed formats.

How do I get my data to Vast?

Simply submit this form.

Name:

Company:

Website URL:

Email:

Phone:

Your HTTP Server

Feed URL:
When Should We Get It:	at (US Pacific Time)
Starting on

Your FTP Server

FTP Server:
FTP File:
FTP Username:
FTP Password:
When Should We Get It:	at (US Pacific Time)
Starting on

Our FTP Server

We will contact you with login credentials.

I Don't Know

We will contact you for more information.

I have read and agree to the Vast Data Supply Agreement

What feed formats does Vast accept?

We accept data feeds in the following formats: XML, CSV, and tab-delimited, though XML is strongly preferred. If you already have a feed formatted for a different site we can accept that too.

Do I need an API key to submit data?

No. Next question.

What the heck is XML?

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language and it is a simple way of formatting data so that it can be easily shared by disparate computer systems over the internet. If you need more information about XML you can visit the World Wide Web Consortium or contact us and we can assist you in creating your feed.

Do you have some XML feed examples?

Of course! Here are some sample XML files showing the formatting we would like to see in a feed for:

What data should my feed include?

We would like to get as much data as you have. The more data you provide us the cleaner your listings will appear and the better they will be categorized on Vast.com. Specifically, we would like to see as many of the following fields as possible:

Universal Fields

Record ID: Unique identifying number of the listing
Title: The title of the listing
Link: The link (url) of the listing
Description: ext description of the listing
Location: As many of these as possible: country, state/province, city, street address, zip/postal code, and area code + prefix (7 digits) of phone number.
Price: Listed price of item
Image: URL of image of listed item
Date posted: Date item was posted on your site
Date expires: The date the listing will expire from your site
Category: The top-level category the listing is posted in on your site, such as real estate, cars, rentals, for sale, services, pets, etc.
Subcategory: The category or categories below the main category, such us condos, roommates, furniture, dogs, etc.

Category Specific Fields

Many categories have unique fields, such as mileage for vehicles, square footage for real estate, venue name for event tickets, breed for dogs, company for jobs, etc. Again, the more of these fields you can provide us with the better your listings will appear on Vast.com. So when in doubt, include whatever data you have and we will sort it out on our end.