Manually create an RSS feed with URLs

I currently have the "problem" that I have to enter a few of my customers' websites in RSS directories, but these websites are not based on WordPress and therefore do not have an RSS feed.

If a website has been set up with WordPress, you can simply add a "/ feed /" to the domain and you will automatically be taken to the RSS feed. For example on the Sir Apfelot blog:

https://www.sir-apfelot.de/feed/

Alternative: manual creation of a static RSS file

The detour to get an RSS feed after all is to manually create such a file. Of course, this does not make much sense in practice if the content of the website changes frequently. In my blog, I would have to put together a new file several times a day to keep it up to date.

For many customers, however, the websites are quite "static". That is, they only change every few months or years, but otherwise remain as they are.

Use and slim down RSS template from WordPress

In order to create an RSS file manually, we need a basic framework that we can fall back on. The WordPress RSS template is very suitable for this.

I just loaded the current feed of my blog into the text editor and then removed information such as tags, categories, images and a lot more.

In principle, what remains is a basic structure that only has the URL, title and description as content fields. In the header area there is some information about the website and the feed URL, which you only have to adapt to the corresponding website.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Titel der Webseite</title>
	<atom:link href="https://www.sir-apfelot.de/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>https://www.sir-apfelot.de</link>
	<description>Kurze Beschreibung der Webseite</description>
	<language>de-DE</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Titel 1</title>
		<link>URL 1</link>
		<guid isPermaLink="true">URL 1</guid>
		<description>Beschreibung 1</description>
	</item>

<item>
		<title>Titel 2</title>
		<link>URL 2</link>
		<guid isPermaLink="true">URL 2</guid>
		<description>Beschreibung 2</description>
	</item>
		
	</channel>
</rss>

With the help of this framework, I create a file for the customer's pages, which I save as rss.xml and upload to the server via FTP.

The RSS file can then be reached under this example URL:

https://www.kundenbeispieldomain.de/rss.xml

Reference to the feed in the HEAD of the website

This is only optional, but recommended: You can refer to the RSS feed in the source code of your website by inserting the following line between the ... tags:

With this code, browsers also recognize that your website has an RSS feed and display a corresponding symbol in the address line.

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="https://www.kundenbeispieldomain.de/rss.xml"

Check RSS feed

If you have problems registering your feed with portals, it could be that you have a syntax error in the code.

It is therefore advisable to use a feed validator (like this one here: https://validator.w3.org/feed/) to consider. This usually throws out a few warnings, but you can find serious errors, such as tags that are not closed or the like.

Jen Kleinholz( Founder & Sir Apfelot )

Jens has been running the blog since 2012. He acts as Sir Apfelot for his readers and helps them with technical problems. In his spare time he rides electric unicycles, takes photos (preferably with the iPhone, of course), climbs around in the Hessian mountains or hikes with the family. His articles deal with Apple products, news from the world of drones or solutions to current bugs.