An RSS feed is a machine-readable list of a website's latest posts, episodes or headlines, written in XML. A feed reader or podcast app checks the feed regularly and shows you new items in one place, so you don't have to visit each site. RSS usually stands for Really Simple Syndication.
You've probably seen a small orange icon or the letters RSS at the bottom of a website and wondered whether you were meant to click it. Or a podcast app asked for a feed address and you weren't sure what to paste in. Both of those are the same quiet piece of web plumbing.
I've pulled this guide together from the RSS Advisory Board's specification and the standard reference material on web feeds. You don't need any coding knowledge. By the end you'll know what a feed is, what's inside one and how people and apps use it.
RSS feed meaning in plain English
RSS is a format for syndicating web content. The specification describes it as a dialect of XML, and the letters are most often expanded as Really Simple Syndication. Other expansions, such as Rich Site Summary, have been used over the years.
In everyday terms, an RSS feed is a machine-readable list of a website's latest items. Each time the site publishes a post, an episode or a headline, the feed gets a new entry at the top. The feed doesn't have a design. It's just structured text that software can read.
Here's an analogy. Think of a newspaper delivery. Instead of walking to the shop every morning to see whether there's anything new, the paper lands on your doormat. A feed does the same job for websites: your reader fetches the updates, and you read them in one place.
What sits inside an RSS feed
The RSS 2.0 specification sets out a simple structure. A feed has one outer element marking the version, and inside it a single channel that describes the site and holds the items. These are the parts you'll hear mentioned:
| Part of the feed | What it holds | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Channel title | The name of the feed or site | Yes |
| Channel link | The address of the website the feed belongs to | Yes |
| Channel description | A short phrase or sentence about the feed | Yes |
| Item | One post, episode or story; a channel can hold any number of them | Every item is optional |
| Item title, link and description | The headline, the address of the full story and a summary or the complete text | Each item needs at least a title or a description |
| Publication date | When the item was published, in the date format the specification names | Optional |
That's really all there is to it. The description of an item can be a short summary that links back to the full story, or the whole article. Which one a site chooses decides whether you read in your reader or click through to the website.
How an RSS feed reader works
A feed reader, sometimes called a news aggregator, collects the feeds you've subscribed to and shows new items from all of them in one list. Readers can sit inside a browser, run as an app on a computer or work on a phone. The reader checks your subscribed feeds regularly and can download new content automatically.
Subscribing is simple. You either paste a feed's address into your reader, or click the feed icon in a browser that supports it. There's no account with the website, no email address to hand over and no algorithm choosing what you see. You see the items in the order the sites published them.
- Find the feed address for a site you like (more on that below).
- Paste it into a feed reader.
- The reader fetches the feed and lists the items.
- Each time it checks again, new items appear in your list.
- Unsubscribing means deleting the feed from your reader; the site never knows.
Where RSS feeds show up beyond blogs
News sites and bloggers were the first big users, but feeds turn up in plenty of other places. Podcasts are the best-known example: a podcast is distributed through a feed, and you add a show's feed to a podcast app, which then lists the episodes for you to download or stream. The Wikipedia entry on RSS notes that version 0.92 introduced the enclosure element that made audio files possible, and that RSS 2.0 became the dominant format for podcasting.
Other everyday uses include news headlines, job listings, product announcements and update notices from software projects. If a website publishes a steady stream of items, there's a good chance it can also publish them as a feed.
A short history of the RSS feed
The reference material traces RSS back to March 1999, when Netscape released the first version for its My.Netscape portal. A simplified version followed later that year, and the RSS 2.0 specification came out in the early 2000s. The RSS Advisory Board describes the specification as effectively frozen, with later revisions meant only to clarify it and new features added through separate modules.
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Popularity dipped after Google Reader was discontinued in 2013, and Firefox removed its built-in RSS support in 2018. But Wikipedia also records that Microsoft Edge and Chrome on Android added the ability to follow RSS feeds in 2021, so the format has stayed in steady use.
RSS feed vs Atom feed
You may also see the word Atom. Atom is a competing syndication format that started in 2003 and became an IETF Proposed Standard known as RFC 4287. Both formats are widely supported by major feed readers, so for a reader it rarely matters which one a site offers. If you're curious, Atom is the one with a registered MIME type and less restrictive licensing, while RSS gained ground largely because early readers supported it.
How to find an RSS feed on a website
Not every site makes its feed obvious. These are the usual places to look:
- A feed or RSS icon, often in the footer or sidebar. WordPress's own documentation says feeds are usually listed there, although not every theme includes every feed type.
- A link labelled Subscribe or RSS in the menu or on a podcast page.
- A browser prompt, if your browser or reader extension detects a feed on the page.
- The site's help or about pages, which sometimes list feed addresses.
WordPress can offer several feed formats, including RSS 2.0, an older RSS 0.92, an RSS 1.0 flavour and Atom, plus a separate feed that carries only comments. The comments feed shows discussion, not new posts. If you run a WordPress site and use more than one site in a network, each site has its own feed, which I touch on in my explainer on how WordPress Multisite works.
Sharing what you know about podcasts and audio
If you've got hands-on knowledge of podcasting, feeds are the thing that makes a show reach listeners, so they're a fine topic to write about. Writing for other publications is one way to get that knowledge in front of a wider audience.
Podcasters and audio writers can see podcasting blogs that accept contributor articles here.
Frequently asked questions
What does RSS stand for?
It's most often expanded as Really Simple Syndication. The RSS Advisory Board uses that name, though earlier versions were described as Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary.
Is RSS still used?
Yes. Podcasts are distributed through RSS feeds, and many blogs and news sites still publish them. Wikipedia notes that Edge and Chrome on Android added support for following feeds in 2021.
Do I need an account to use an RSS feed?
No. You paste the feed address into a feed reader, and the reader fetches the items. You don't sign up with the website itself.
What's the difference between RSS and Atom?
They do the same job. Atom started in 2003 and became an IETF standard, RFC 4287, while RSS has the longer history. Most feed readers support both.
Why does a podcast need an RSS feed?
A podcast app reads the feed to list the episodes and fetch the audio files. The enclosure element introduced in RSS 0.92 is what made that possible.
