Whether you choose to call it Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, it’s all the same and most sites on the internet today publishing regular updates allow you to subscribe to their RSS feed. RSS feeds make it easier seeing updates from you favorite websites, you get the updates delivered through your feed reader and most of us keep a list of sites we track for updates.
Instead of visiting the sites one by one trying to keep up with the updates, RSS has made everything a lot more easier as you get to see the headlines as soon as they’re available.
However, some sites choose to disable this feature. You find a news website with quality posts and you would like to get updates from them regularly, but seeing there’s no RSS feed available can be disappointing at times.
If you’ve already been through this, you should know that there’s an easy way to create an RSS feed for a site that offers none. I’ve done this a number of times and there’s no doubt it works. Several sites offer this service and the best is highlighted in this article.
Page2RSS
This is probably the easiest way to get this done. There’s no extra settings, you only need to enter the website’s address and hit the to RSS button and you should get a link to your RSS feed on the next page. Apart from creating RSS feeds for sites that do not offer the feature, Page2RSS also can also post updates to your Twitter account using an app. There’s also a chrome extension to create RSS feeds on the fly. Visit Page2RSS.
FiveFilters.org
FiveFilters offers a wonderful service and it’s what I prefer to use. It has an advanced option that lets you define the HTML class or ID containing post titles on a page. This means it looks for links inside HTML elements whose id or class are defined and tracks new links appearing having this HTML class. For example, if all the post titles on a page have the class “entry-title”, it auto updates the feed with new links having that HTML class.
To use this, you must know a bit about HTML and know how to view a site’s source code from your browser. Although it’s optional defining the HTML class on the page to monitor for updates, it only ensures you get the right links in your RSS feed. Visit FiveFilters.
Kimono Labs
Kimono Labs too offers a great service but then, you need to have an account to use their service. Also, you need to make use of their chrome extension or bookmarklet. It’s not as easy to use as the first two mentioned but, the end result can be pretty neat and you have the option of selecting how often you want to call the API to update the feed. You can also choose on the page which elements to track for changes. Visit Kimono Labs.
Another website offering this service for free is Feed43.com but unfortunately, it’s not as easy to use as the rest on the list. If all you need is a simple RSS feed and wouldn’t want to mess around going through advanced setup, perhaps Page2RSS is your best bet. However, if you know a bit about HTML and want to be specific about items to track for changes on a web page, FiveFilters RSS creator might be what you need.
Kimono Labs too offers the features these two have but they take it a step further giving an intuitive GUI to set up your feed and allowing you to define how often the feed updates.
