Many websites publish an RSS or Atom feed even when they do not display an RSS button. The feed may be linked in the page’s HTML, available at a predictable platform URL or attached to a particular blog, category, tag or author page.
This guide gives you a repeatable way to find the correct feed URL and confirm that it contains the content you need. Once you have a working source, it can power a feed reader or an automated RSS-to-email newsletter.
The quickest way to find a feed
Try these steps in order:
- Look for an RSS, Subscribe or Follow link on the website.
- Check the page source for an RSS or Atom discovery link.
- Try common feed URL patterns on the homepage and relevant content section.
- Identify the website platform and use its documented feed pattern.
- Validate the result and inspect its newest items.
Do not stop when a URL merely loads. Confirm that it is a real feed, belongs to the intended section and contains current content.
What an RSS feed looks like
RSS and Atom are structured documents intended for software rather than ordinary webpage visitors. Depending on the browser, opening a feed may show:
- formatted titles and article summaries;
- raw XML text;
- a download prompt; or
- a browser message explaining that the document has no associated style.
A typical RSS document begins with XML and an <rss> element. An Atom document normally contains a <feed> element. Both can be valid content sources.
The feed URL often ends with /feed/, /rss/, .xml or .atom, but the ending alone does not prove that the URL is a feed.
1. Check the visible website
Look in the header, footer, sidebar and blog navigation for:
- RSS;
- Subscribe;
- Follow updates;
- News feed;
- Podcast feed; or
- an orange RSS icon.
Right-click the link and copy its address. Some Subscribe links lead to an email form rather than a feed, so open the destination and inspect it before using it.
Also check the specific content section you want. A website may have separate feeds for news, events, jobs, categories, authors or podcasts without offering one site-wide feed.
2. Inspect the HTML source
Websites can advertise feeds in the <head> of a page using an alternate link. This is often the most reliable discovery method because feed readers use the same signal.
Open the page source—not just the browser’s visual inspector—and search for:
application/rss+xmlapplication/atom+xmlrel="alternate"rssatom
You are looking for markup similar to:
<link rel="alternate"
type="application/rss+xml"
title="Example News"
href="https://example.com/news/feed.xml">
The value of href is the feed URL. If it begins with / rather than https://, combine it with the website’s domain. For example, /news/feed.xml on https://example.com becomes https://example.com/news/feed.xml.
A page can advertise more than one feed. Use the title, URL and feed contents to determine which one matches the section you need.
3. Try common feed URL patterns
If the website does not advertise a feed, test common paths. Start with the domain:
https://example.com/feed/
https://example.com/rss/
https://example.com/rss.xml
https://example.com/feed.xml
https://example.com/atom.xml
https://example.com/index.xml
Then try the same pattern on the relevant content section:
https://example.com/news/feed/
https://example.com/blog/rss.xml
https://example.com/events/feed.xml
These are discovery guesses, not standards. A valid response should contain feed markup and recent items rather than a branded 404 page, search page or ordinary HTML document.
Be careful with redirects. A guessed feed URL may silently redirect to the homepage, which means it is not a usable feed even though the browser displays a successful page.
4. Use the website platform’s feed pattern
If you can identify the CMS or publishing platform, its feed structure can narrow the search.
WordPress
The main WordPress posts feed is commonly:
https://example.com/feed/
Category, tag and author archives can also have feeds, such as:
https://example.com/category/news/feed/
https://example.com/tag/research/feed/
https://example.com/author/name/feed/
Custom permalink bases, plugins and custom post types can change the available URLs. WordPress documents its built-in feed system in the official WordPress feeds handbook.
If the feed will power a newsletter, continue with the dedicated WordPress RSS-to-email setup guide.
Ghost
Ghost commonly generates a feed by adding /rss/ to the publication or archive URL:
https://example.com/rss/
https://example.com/tag/news/rss/
https://example.com/author/name/rss/
Private Ghost sites do not expose the normal public feed. See Ghost’s current RSS feed documentation for public and private-site behaviour.
Squarespace
For a Squarespace collection page, append ?format=rss to the full page URL:
https://example.com/blog?format=rss
The page slug is required; adding the parameter only to the homepage may not return the blog feed. Password-protected or disabled pages may not expose their feeds. Squarespace documents the current structure in its RSS feed URL guide.
Other platforms and custom websites
Search the platform’s official documentation for “RSS”, “Atom”, “syndication” or “feed URL”. For a custom-built website, inspect templates, route configuration or deployment output if you have access to the code.
A generator meta tag in the HTML can sometimes reveal the platform:
<meta name="generator" content="Example CMS">
Not every site exposes this information, and proxy services or headless architectures can make platform detection unreliable.
5. Check sitemaps and robots.txt
A sitemap is not an RSS feed, but it can reveal the exact blog, category or content-section URLs to investigate. Look for:
https://example.com/robots.txt
https://example.com/sitemap.xml
The robots file may point to one or more sitemaps. Use those URLs to identify the publishing section, then inspect that section’s page source and likely feed paths.
Do not use an XML sitemap as the newsletter feed. Sitemaps are designed for search-engine discovery and do not normally contain the descriptions, ordering and content fields expected by RSS-to-email systems.
How to confirm you found the correct feed
Finding valid XML is only the first step. Check that the feed:
- contains the newest items from the intended section;
- uses stable links to the preferred article URLs;
- provides titles and publication dates;
- includes usable descriptions or full content;
- exposes images if your email template requires them;
- is publicly accessible without a login, cookie or security challenge; and
- continues to work in a private browser window.
Use the independent W3C Feed Validation Service to check the source before connecting it to an email workflow.
Choose the narrowest useful feed
The main site feed is not always the best choice. If the newsletter is only about research, events or vacancies, a corresponding category feed is usually more useful than a feed containing everything the organisation publishes.
When choosing between several valid feeds, compare:
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Does every item suit the audience? | Irrelevant content weakens the newsletter. |
| Does it update often enough? | An inactive feed produces empty sends. |
| Does it overlap another selected feed? | Overlap can create duplicate items. |
| Are images and excerpts consistent? | Feed fields control what the template can display. |
| Is the URL controlled by the organisation? | Third-party feed URLs can disappear or change terms. |
If you need content from several sources, continue with the multi-feed automation planning guide.
Troubleshoot a feed that does not work
The URL returns a normal webpage
Check the final URL after redirects. The server may be sending unknown paths to the homepage rather than returning a 404. Try HTML source discovery or the platform’s documented feed pattern instead.
The feed is blocked
Test without being logged in. Password protection, bot protection, firewall rules and cookie challenges can prevent email services from fetching a feed even when it works for an administrator.
The XML contains an error page
Do not rely only on the .xml extension or response content type. Read the document and confirm it contains RSS or Atom entries rather than a platform error wrapped in XML.
The feed exists but is out of date
Compare the latest published article with the newest feed item. Clear website and CDN caches if you control the site. Check whether the content belongs to the category, tag or post type represented by the feed.
Images are missing
An image visible on the webpage may not be included in the feed. Inspect each item’s markup for an enclosure, media element or complete image URL. The website may need a feed-specific configuration or template change.
No feed exists
If you control the website, add a native RSS or Atom endpoint and advertise it with a <link rel="alternate"> element. A native feed is usually more dependable than scraping rendered pages.
If you do not control the site, ask the publisher whether a feed or API is available. Third-party page-to-feed generators can be useful, but they depend on the website’s markup and may break after a redesign. Confirm that your use of the content and service complies with the relevant terms and permissions.
Feed discovery checklist
Before using a feed, confirm that you have:
- checked visible RSS and Subscribe links;
- searched the HTML source for RSS and Atom discovery tags;
- tested common paths and the platform-specific pattern;
- checked the final URL after redirects;
- inspected the latest items rather than only the XML wrapper;
- validated titles, links, dates, descriptions and images;
- tested public access without a login; and
- selected the narrowest feed that matches the audience.
Turn the feed into an automated newsletter
Once you have a reliable feed, you can connect it to an email platform, set content limits and choose a sending schedule. FlipRSS can also combine several feeds and match content to subscriber preferences through Mailchimp.
Explore RSS-to-email automation or continue with the Mailchimp RSS-to-email integration guide.