Free services for webmasters
Links to Universalis
Of course you are welcome to put links to Universalis in your web site. You don't need to ask.
How to construct a link
When you are putting a Universalis link into a web site, you have to give some thought to exactly what the link should contain, to give the best possible experience to your readers.
Here is an article about constructing links to Universalis.
Linking back to your site
If you let us know you have linked to us then we will link back to you through our Links page. It isn't curated, but being there may still help your visibility to search engines.
Banners
You can use a banner instead of a plain text link, like this:
The banner will automatically update itself to show today's celebration.
Here is an article about banners.
QR codes
In printed material (newsletters or even posters) you can include a “QR code” with a link to Universalis. People with suitable phones can point their cameras at the code and be taken straight to (for example) today’s readings at Mass.
Here is an article about creating QR codes.
Universalis content on your page
How not to do it
You can’t copy and paste our pages directly into yours, for copyright reasons. Anyway, it would be terribly boring to have to do it day after day, every day for ever.
Similarly, you can’t tell your server to visit our pages, scrape out the content that it wants, and incorporate it into your own pages. That is unfair to the copyright owners, who kindly allow us to display their text, and unfair to your visitors, who get a truncated, even mangled version of “the Universalis experience”.
Here are two ways of getting today's Mass readings into your web page. The JSON method also lets you get the readings for next Sunday.
How to do it
<iframe>
iframes are a way of creating a rectangular 'window' inside your own page through which another web site is visible.
This is quick and simple to set up but the drawback is that what people see inside the frame is the whole of our site (headings and all) and not just the liturgical texts. And you have to decide the size of the frame in advance, which means that either mobile phone users or users of big computers are bound to be unhappy. You can't please them both.
You can read more about iframes here.
JSON (actually JSONP)
You can incorporate a few lines of Javascript into your web page which will retrieve specific pieces of Universalis content – for instance, the Gospel and readings at Mass – and place them into the text of your page.
The text retrieved becomes part of your web page, so it has the same style and appearance as everythng else and doesn't have to live in its own separate box.
You need to be able to edit the HTML text of your page in order to use this method, but it isn't a sophisticated business.
You can read more about JSON/JSONP here.
RSS
Some web servers allow you to incorporate RSS feeds from other sources into your page layout. Some blogging platforms have this ability.
Unless the RSS feed feature is already built in to your system, this is quite complicated. If it is built in, it is very simple.
You can read more about RSS feeds here.
Further information
If you have any other queries please contact us, using the link at the bottom right of this page.