The Official Website of Alex Kinch

What is an RSS feed and how do I use one?

April 18, 2021

You might have seen the RSS icon before on blogs or other such websites and wondered what it is. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Essentially RSS is a standard for feeds to be set up in. RSS feeds can be used for blogs, podcasts, or basically anything someone would want a notification for on website.

How do I use an RSS feed?

To get notifications from an RSS feed, you need an RSS reader. For my PC, I am using an RSS reader called QuiteRSS. I didn't put much thought into the program I am using, but the nice thing about this RSS reader is it is free and open source. On my Android phone I am using Feeder which is also free and open source.

You can get RSS feeds where you see the RSS logo. You need to put the link into your RSS reader. I don't know too much about the desktop RSS readers, but Feeder will send you a notification when new content is added. This is useful because it is an easy way to send notifications about new content on a site without needing to rely on social media.

How do I make my own RSS feed?

The following is an example of the XML code required for an RSS feed:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 

<rss version="2.0"> 

<channel> 

<title>Alex Kinch's RSS feed</title> 

<link>http://alexkinch.ddns.net/</link> 

<description>This is Alex Kinch's RSS feed.</description> 

<item> 

<title>Starting my website and how you can too!</title> 

<link>https://alexkinch.ddns.net/posts/2021-4-17_making_website.html</link> 

<guid>https://alexkinch.ddns.net/posts/2021-4-17_making_website.html</guid> 

<pubDate>Sun, 18 Apr 2021 03:13:30 GMT</pubDate> 

<description>In this article I tell you how I set up my current website/blog, and how it is possible for you to do so too with a little bit of effort!</description> 

</item> 

</channel> 

</rss>

So far, I have written my RSS feed by hand, and you can too if you follow the example above. There are programs out there that will help you generate an RSS feed, but my site is fairly simple as of now so I don't use them. If you use a website generator(like WordPress) it can create an RSS feed automatically.

Conclusion

Whether you have created your own site and you want to let your followers know when new content is available, or you are someone who wants to stay up to date with your favorite creators, RSS is a great solution. Since this is a great opportunity to remind you of this, I have an RSS feed you can follow here.