How to Find the RSS Feed URL for Any Website (5 Methods)

Why You’d Want to Find a Site’s RSS Feed URL

Every RSS reader, aggregator plugin, and automation tool needs the same thing from you: a feed URL. That’s the actual address of a site’s RSS feed, and it’s the key to pulling content automatically instead of checking sites one by one.

The problem? Most websites don’t advertise their feed URL anywhere obvious. There’s no standard “RSS Feed” button in the main navigation. Some sites bury it in their footer. Others have a feed but never mention it at all.

So you need to know how to find it yourself. Here are five methods that work, ordered from easiest to most technical.

Method 1: Try Common Feed URL Patterns

This is the fastest approach and it works more often than you’d expect. Most content management systems generate RSS feeds at predictable URLs. Just type the site’s domain followed by one of these paths:

• /feed or /feed/, the most common pattern by far, used by WordPress (which powers over 40% of the web)
• /rss
• /feed.xml
• /rss.xml
• /atom.xml
• /index.xml

So if you’re looking for the feed of example.com, you’d try example.com/feed first. If the page loads and you see a wall of XML code (or your browser renders it as a structured feed), you’ve found it. Copy that URL and paste it into your RSS reader or aggregator.

An analysis of 1,000 RSS feeds found that /feed alone accounted for over half of all feed URLs. So start there.

When this doesn’t work: Custom-built websites, single-page applications, and sites built with plain HTML usually won’t have feeds at these paths. If none of the patterns above return a valid feed, move to Method 2.

Method 2: Check the Page Source Code

This is the most reliable method and it works on any website that has a feed, regardless of what CMS it uses.

Websites can advertise their RSS feeds through a special <link> tag in their HTML. Browsers and RSS readers use this tag to auto-detect feeds. Here’s how to find it:

1. Go to the website’s homepage
2. Right-click anywhere on the page and select View Page Source (or press Ctrl+U on Windows, Cmd+Option+U on Mac)
3. Press Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F) to open the search bar
4. Search for rss
5. Look for a line that looks like this:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Site Name" href="https://example.com/feed" />

The URL inside the href attribute is the feed URL. Copy it.

If searching for “rss” returns nothing, try searching for atom instead. Some sites use Atom feeds (a different but closely related format) rather than RSS:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Site Name" href="https://example.com/atom.xml" />

Both RSS and Atom feeds work in virtually every feed reader and aggregator. You don’t need to worry about the difference for practical purposes.

Tip: If the href value starts with / instead of https://, it’s a relative URL. Prepend the site’s domain to get the full address. For example, if the href is /feed.xml and the site is example.com, the full feed URL is https://example.com/feed.xml.

When this doesn’t work: Some sites have valid RSS feeds but don’t include the autodiscovery <link> tag. JavaScript-heavy single-page apps may not show these tags in the static HTML source either. In those cases, try Method 3 or 4.

Method 3: Use a Browser Extension

Browsers used to have built-in RSS detection. Chrome removed it back in 2011, and other browsers followed. But browser extensions can bring that functionality back.

Once installed, these extensions scan every page you visit for RSS feeds and show an icon in your toolbar when they find one. Click the icon, and you’ll see a list of available feeds for that page.

Here are some well-rated options available in the Chrome Web Store:

• RSS Feed URL Finder. Does one thing: finds feed URLs on the current page.
• Awesome RSS. Detects and displays all available feeds on any site.
• Get RSS Feed URL. Another lightweight feed detector.

If you already use an RSS reader like Feedly or Inoreader, their browser extensions include feed detection as a built-in feature. You can discover and subscribe to feeds without leaving the page.

When this doesn’t work: Extensions rely on the same autodiscovery tags from Method 2. If a site has a feed but no <link> tag advertising it, the extension probably won’t find it either. That’s where online tools come in.

Method 4: Use an Online Feed Finder Tool

Several free tools can scan a URL and return any RSS feeds they find. These tools tend to go deeper than browser extensions because they check multiple URL patterns, not just the autodiscovery tags.

Two worth trying:

• Tiny RSS Finder. Paste in a URL and it scans for feeds using meta tags, common URL paths, and platform-specific patterns (WordPress, Medium, Substack, Ghost, YouTube, Reddit, and more). Free, no account required.
• RSS.app. Goes a step further. If a site doesn’t have a native RSS feed, RSS.app can generate one for you by monitoring the page for changes. Free plan available.

You can also use the W3C Feed Validator to check whether a URL you’ve found is actually a valid RSS feed. Paste the URL in, and it’ll tell you if the feed is well-formed or if there are issues.

When this doesn’t work: If a website genuinely doesn’t have an RSS feed, no finder tool will conjure one up (though RSS.app’s feed generator is the closest thing to a workaround). More on that in the “No Feed?” section below.

Method 5: Search for It

When the other methods come up empty, search engines can sometimes surface feeds that aren’t linked anywhere on the site itself.

Try these Google searches (replace example.com with your target site):

• site:example.com inurl:rss
• site:example.com inurl:feed
• site:example.com filetype:xml rss

DuckDuckGo and Bing also support a hasfeed: operator that’s specifically designed for this. Search hasfeed:example.com and it’ll return pages on that domain that contain RSS or Atom feeds.

Bonus: Google Alerts as Custom RSS

This one isn’t about finding an existing feed, but it solves the same problem. Google Alerts can deliver results as an RSS feed instead of email:

1. Go to google.com/alerts
2. Enter a search query (you can use operators like site:example.com to limit results to a specific site)
3. Click Show options
4. Change Deliver to from “Email” to RSS feed
5. Click Create Alert
6. Right-click the RSS icon next to your new alert, select Copy link address

Now you have an RSS feed that monitors Google’s search results for your query. It’s indirect, since you’re getting Google’s view of the site’s content rather than the site’s own feed, but it works when nothing else does.

RSS Feed URLs for Popular Platforms

If the site you’re looking for runs on a known platform, you can skip the detective work entirely. Here are the feed URL patterns for the most popular platforms, all verified and working:

WordPress

WordPress sites have the richest RSS support of any platform. Beyond the main feed, you can get feeds for specific categories, tags, authors, and even comments.

Main feed:       example.com/feed
Category feed:   example.com/category/CATEGORY-NAME/feed
Tag feed:        example.com/tag/TAG-NAME/feed
Author feed:     example.com/author/AUTHOR-NAME/feed
Comments feed:   example.com/comments/feed
Post comments:   example.com/post-slug/feed

The category and tag feeds are especially useful if you only want content on a specific topic from a site that covers many subjects.

YouTube

Channel feed:    youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID
Playlist feed:   youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLAYLIST_ID

YouTube feeds are capped at the 15 most recent videos. You’ll need the channel’s ID (not the handle or username). To find it: go to the channel page, view the page source, and search for channel_id or externalId. The ID starts with UC.

We covered this in detail in our guide to YouTube RSS feeds.

Reddit

Subreddit:       reddit.com/r/SUBREDDIT/.rss
Front page:      reddit.com/.rss
User posts:      reddit.com/user/USERNAME/.rss
Multi-sub:       reddit.com/r/sub1+sub2+sub3.rss
Domain links:    reddit.com/domain/DOMAIN.COM/.rss

Reddit RSS feeds still work without an API key, which matters since Reddit has become increasingly restrictive with API access. You can also add parameters like ?sort=top&t=day&limit=10 to customize the results.

Substack

Newsletter:      NEWSLETTER.substack.com/feed
Custom domain:   customdomain.com/feed

Substack feeds include full-text content, making them one of the more RSS-friendly platforms out there.

Medium

Publication:     medium.com/feed/PUBLICATION-NAME
User:            medium.com/feed/@USERNAME

Ghost

Main feed:       example.com/rss/
Tag feed:        example.com/tag/TAG-NAME/rss/
Author feed:     example.com/author/AUTHOR-NAME/rss/

Squarespace

Blog:            example.com/blog?format=rss
Any page:        example.com/PAGE-SLUG?format=rss

Blogger / Blogspot

Main feed:       example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
RSS format:      example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Tumblr

Blog:            example.tumblr.com/rss

Beehiiv

Newsletter:      NEWSLETTER.beehiiv.com/feed

What If a Site Doesn’t Have an RSS Feed?

You’ve tried all five methods and come up empty. The site genuinely doesn’t offer an RSS feed. You have a few options:

• Use a feed generator. Tools like RSS.app can monitor any webpage and create an RSS feed from its content, even if the site doesn’t natively support RSS. You pick the page elements you want to track, and the tool generates a feed URL you can subscribe to.
• Set up Google Alerts. As described in Method 5, you can create an RSS feed from Google Alerts that monitors a specific site or topic.
• Contact the site owner. Some site owners don’t realize they’ve disabled RSS, especially on WordPress where it’s on by default. A quick message might get it turned back on.

Now That You’ve Found the Feed, What Next?

Finding the feed URL is step one. What you do with it depends on your goals.

If you just want to follow a handful of sites for personal reading, any RSS reader will do. Paste the URL in, and you’ll see new posts as they’re published.

But if you’re trying to do something more with that content, like displaying curated feeds on your own website, importing posts into WordPress, or building a content hub that pulls from dozens of sources, you need something more capable than a basic reader.

WP RSS Aggregator is built for exactly this. It takes the feed URLs you’ve found and lets you:

• Display feeds on your WordPress site using customizable templates (list, grid, or excerpt layouts)
• Import feed items as WordPress posts, complete with categories, featured images, and custom fields
• Filter content by keyword so you only pull in what’s relevant
• Schedule publishing to control when imported content goes live
• Curate manually by reviewing items before they’re published

It’s used by over 60,000 websites and works with any valid RSS or Atom feed. Plans start at $99/year.

Dealing with Inconsistent Feed Content

One thing you’ll notice when you start pulling in feeds from multiple sources: the content quality varies wildly. Some feeds give you full articles. Others give you a single sentence and a “read more” link. Some include images, others don’t.

This is a common pain point for anyone aggregating content at scale. WP RSS Aggregator’s Full Text Import feature helps by extracting the complete article content even when the feed only provides an excerpt.

Wrapping Up

Finding RSS feed URLs isn’t complicated once you know where to look. Start with /feed appended to the URL. If that doesn’t work, check the source code. If you want a hands-off approach, install a browser extension that does the scanning for you.

For specific platforms, use the URL patterns listed above. They’re standardized and reliable. And for the rare site that has no feed at all, tools like RSS.app can fill the gap.

The real value of RSS comes after you’ve collected your feeds. Whether you’re curating industry news, building a content hub, or just keeping up with your favorite sites without algorithmic interference, having a direct line to the source is worth the small effort of finding that URL.

Do you have any questions about how to find the RSS feed URL for specific sites? Ask away in the comments section below!