📟How do you find the RSS Feed of a website (if it exists)

· 5 min read

Summary

This article describes various methods to find RSS feeds on websites. For WordPress, you append /feed to the URL to find the RSS feed, while for Tumblr and Medium, /rss and /feed/ are added respectively. For a Blogger site, the string at the end of the URL is longer, feeds/posts/default. YouTube channel pages also act as RSS feeds. Additionally, you can extract the RSS feed from the page source by searching for ‘Application/rss’ or ‘Atom’ in the source code. Safari users can use an app that adds a ready-to-use RSS button to their browser. Lastly, ‘educated guessing’ is a technique where you add /feed/ or /rss/ to the domain in the hope that one of them leads you to the correct feed.

Comments

Method 2 is the most practical in practice.

Content

Method 1 – Investigating the CMS Used

  • To access a WordPress RSS feed, simply append /feed to the site’s URL. So, if the WordPress site’s URL is, for example, example.com, to find the RSS feed, you would add /feed to obtain example.com/feed. When used in an RSS reader, this URL would allow you to view the site’s content in feed form.
  • In the case of sites hosted on Tumblr, the method is slightly different but still very straightforward. You need to add /rss to the end of the Tumblr site’s URL. So, if the Tumblr address is example.tumblr.com, the RSS feed can be found at example.tumblr.com/rss.
  • For blogs hosted on Blogger, you need to add a slightly longer string to the end of the URL: feeds/posts/default. So, for a Blogger site at the address example.blogspot.com, the RSS feed can be found at example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.
  • If you want to find an RSS feed for a publication hosted on Medium, you have to add /feed/ before the publication’s name in the URL. If the publication’s address on Medium is medium.com/example-site, the URL for the RSS feed would change to medium.com/feed/example-site to view it in your RSS reader.
  • YouTube channel pages also have a built-in functionality to act as RSS feeds. As such, you simply need to copy the channel’s URL and paste it into your RSS reader. Additionally, if you are already subscribed to various channels on YouTube, you can find an OPML file with all your subscriptions here, which you can then import into your RSS reader for easy access to all subscribed channels.

Method 2 – Extract RSS Feed from Page Source

To find the RSS or Atom feeds of a specific website, start by opening the website in your browser. Then, right-click anywhere on the page—it doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s not a link or image.

In the context menu that appears, choose the option “View Page Source” or something similar; the exact text may vary depending on the browser you are using. This will show you the page source, which is the underlying HTML and CSS skeleton that determines how the page looks and functions.

Once in the page source, use your browser’s search function (often accessible via Ctrl + F or Command + F on a Mac) to search for the term “Application/rss”. This is the most common way websites indicate their RSS feeds.

If you don’t get any results searching for “Application/rss,” try searching for “Atom”. Atom is an alternative feed standard that some sites may use instead of or in addition to RSS.

If you find any of these terms in the page source, follow the corresponding URL to access the feed.

Method 3 – Browser Extensions

If you use Safari, there is a user-friendly solution you can apply to receive RSS feeds, which is the RSS Button for the Safari app. This feature is designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind. It adds an RSS button to your Safari browser, allowing you quick and easy access to RSS feeds of websites you visit. The only caution is that this convenient button requires a small fee of $0.99. While this is a minimal cost, some users may object to paying for such functionality.

Method 4 – The Principle of Educated Guessing

This is an interesting method, particularly intended for cases where you want to find the RSS feed for a particular website, but it is not clearly indicated on the site itself. In such circumstances, “Educated Guessing” is helpful.

As an illustrative example, let’s take example.com/. Suppose you would like to find the RSS feed for this website, but you cannot find it in the usual sections of the website (such as the footer or sidebar). In such a situation, you can resort to educated guessing. This means trying out some obvious URL paths in the hope that one of them leads you to the correct feed.

Start by appending ‘/feed/’ after the domain. So, in our example, you would try navigating to example.com/feed/. If this doesn’t work, you can try another popular URL structure, such as ‘/rss/’. This means navigating to example.com/rss/.

This is, of course, not an exact science, and there is no guarantee that any of these guesses will lead you to the desired RSS feed. However, in practice, you will find that many websites follow these general URL structures for their feeds, making this a valuable technique to try. It is undoubtedly a quick and simple method to attempt to find the RSS feed if you are unable to locate it directly on the website.