What is RSS? A simple guide to RSS feeds
RSS is one of the easiest ways to follow news and new content from many websites in one place. Here is everything you need to know about RSS.
Updated · WIPIT AB
What does RSS stand for?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS feed is a file on a website that lists the latest content, such as news, blog posts, podcast episodes or videos. Each item in the feed has a title, a link, often a short summary and a date.
Because the feed has a fixed format, apps can read it automatically. That lets you follow hundreds of websites without visiting them one by one.
How does an RSS feed work?
The website publishes the feed at its own address, for example /rss or /feed. An RSS reader fetches that address regularly and shows the items that are new since last time. An RSS feed is written in XML and looks roughly like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Exempel</title>
<link>https://www.exempel.se/</link>
<description>Senaste nytt</description>
<item>
<title>Rubrik på artikeln</title>
<link>https://www.exempel.se/artikel</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>What is RSS used for?
RSS is used to follow news sites and blogs, to listen to podcasts (every podcast is built on RSS), to fill newsletters automatically and to show news from other sources on your own website. Many companies use RSS to show industry news or their own press releases on their site.
How do you find the RSS link of a website?
Look for an orange RSS icon or links called RSS, Feed or Subscribe. Often the address is hidden in the page source. The quickest way is to paste the website address into our Find RSS feed tool and we will show every feed the site has.
How do you create an RSS feed?
If the website has no RSS feed of its own, you can create one with RSS APP. Paste the page address and we read the articles and turn them into an RSS feed. The feed updates automatically and is available as RSS, Atom or JSON.
What is an RSS reader?
An RSS reader collects all your feeds in one place and shows new articles in date order. There are readers as apps, in the browser and in email programs such as Outlook and Thunderbird. With our online RSS reader you can read a feed right away without installing anything.
How do you show RSS on your website?
With an RSS widget you show the latest articles from a feed directly on your website. You choose the layout, colours and number of items and paste one line of code. The widget updates by itself when the feed gets new articles.