What Is RSS? A Beginner’s Guide to Feeds and How They Work

Have you seen the orange XML and RSS buttons or icons on a website, but don't know what they are or what they stand for.  It signifies an RSS feed. To give you an idea of what it looks like, below is the RSS icon for WomansDivorce:

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." What it really means for you is that it gives you an easy way to be notified of all the latest updates to websites where you have subscribed to their RSS feed. 

For example, whenever a new article is added to the WomansDivorce website or we've updated an old page, a notification is sent out through our RSS feed. And as a result...

You can get current divorce information without having to spend hours searching on the internet. Your RSS feed notifies you when the new content has been added. You will see a headline and brief description of the new content that has been added, along with a link to the content. 

RSS Readers and Tools

The technology behind RSS feeds has been around since the late 1990s, and while it doesn’t grab headlines anymore, it remains a powerful way to stay up to date on what's going on at your favorite websites. These applications track all the feeds that you are subscribed to, monitoring the sites for the latest updates.

If you want to start receiving these updates, it's easy to get started! You can use an online RSS Reader to get the updates you want. Modern RSS feed readers include:

• Feedly - The most popular reader with a sleek layout and other great features. 
• Inoreader - Easy for mobile users, with automatic tagging and organizing.
• The Old Reader - Easy to use with integrated social sharing. 

If you prefer, you can add feeds directly into your browser with Chrome or Firefox extensions, or even route feeds into email or productivity apps like Notion and Slack. Lifewire offers more information about the top 5 online RSS readers.

Benefits of RSS Readers

A lot of people keep up to date on social media, but these platforms rely on algorithms that decide what you see - and what you don’t.

RSS doesn’t use algorithms. You’re in full control of what you subscribe to and what shows up in your feed. They also offer a lot more privacy than social media because they don't track what you're reading.

And instead of getting distacted by all the memes and click-bait, RSS gives you one place to scan all your updates, distraction-free. It helps you cut through all the noise.

How to Get Started 

Ready to give RSS a try? Here’s how to get started: 

• Choose a reader: Feedly is a great place to start or choose one of the others listed above.
• Find RSS feeds: Look for the RSS icon on your favorite sites or add “/feed” to the URL (for example: website.com/feed).
• Paste the feed link into your reader.
• Subscribe, organize, and enjoy a streamlined way to keep up with content.

How to Subscribe to the WomansDivorce feed

Once you have an RSS reader, this is how you subscribe to the WomansDivorce feed...

• Right-click (or control-click for Mac users) on the orange RSS button on the orange button below.
  
• Select Copy Shortcut (for Mac's choose "Copy Link to Clipboard"), and
• Paste the URL into your RSS Reader.

And that is all it takes to subscribe! All you need to do next is to visit your feed reader to check for updates from all of the websites you have subscribed to.