How to find a website's RSS feed, manage its content, and protect against unauthorized use?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 10 Jun 2025
Updated 19 Aug 2025
7 min read
RSS feeds are a powerful tool for content syndication, allowing users to subscribe to updates from their favorite websites. For publishers, they offer a way to distribute content widely and maintain an audience. However, understanding how to find these feeds, effectively manage the content they distribute, and critically, protect your intellectual property from unauthorized use is essential in today's digital landscape.
Many don't realize that an RSS feed, while beneficial for discoverability, can also be a vector for content scraping if not properly configured and monitored. My aim is to walk you through the process of locating RSS feeds, outline strategies for managing what content is published through them, and discuss methods to prevent your work from being used without permission.
Discovering RSS feeds
Finding a website's RSS feed is often simpler than you might think, though methods can vary. Many modern content management systems, such as WordPress, automatically generate an RSS feed by default. In many cases, you can find the primary feed by simply adding /feed/ or /rss/ to the end of a website's main URL or blog section URL.
Another common approach involves inspecting the website's source code. Most browsers allow you to right-click on an empty space on the page and select "View Page Source" or "Inspect Element." Once in the source code, you can use the search function (Ctrl+F or Command+F) to look for terms like "RSS," "feed," or "atom." You'll often find a link tag similar to the example below that points directly to the RSS feed URL. Zapier offers a helpful guide on how to find an RSS feed URL for various sites.
Example RSS link in HTML headhtml
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Site Name » Feed" href="https://example.com/feed/">
For some sites, an RSS icon (often an orange square with a white radio waves symbol) will be prominently displayed, indicating the presence of a feed. Clicking this icon usually takes you directly to the feed URL. If these methods fail, a quick search on how to find a website's RSS feed can often yield platform-specific instructions.
Managing RSS feed content
Once you know how to find your website's RSS feed, the next step is managing its content. By default, many platforms will include the full content of your articles in the RSS feed. While convenient for subscribers, this can inadvertently facilitate content duplication or scraping, where your complete articles are republished on other sites without your permission. This is especially relevant if you are facing issues with email content cloning or unauthorized usage of your brand.
To mitigate this risk, consider configuring your RSS feed to display only a summary or excerpt of your posts, rather than the full article. This encourages readers to visit your original website for the complete content, driving traffic and engagement directly to you. Most content management systems provide settings to control this. For example, in WordPress, you can typically adjust this under Settings > Reading, by selecting "For each article in a feed, show: Summary" instead of "Full text."
Content type: Decide whether to publish full text, excerpts, or just titles and links.
Number of items: Limit the number of recent posts displayed in the feed.
Categories: Create specific feeds for different content categories.
Regularly reviewing your RSS feed content helps ensure it aligns with your strategy for content distribution and protection. This also helps in maintaining a healthy domain reputation, as excessive content scraping can sometimes be misconstrued as spammy behavior or contribute to your domain being placed on a blocklist (or blacklist).
Protecting against unauthorized use
Protecting your content from unauthorized use, especially content distributed via RSS feeds, is crucial for preserving your intellectual property and maintaining traffic to your original site. By default, all original works are protected by copyright. This means that if someone republishes your full content from an RSS feed without permission, it constitutes copyright infringement, regardless of whether you have an explicit copyright notice on your site or feed.
While legal protection exists, proactive measures are important. Clearly stating your terms of use and disclaimers on your website can deter some unauthorized usage. This should outline how your content may or may not be used, and specify that full content syndication requires explicit permission. For more severe cases of content theft, particularly when your content is being monetized by others, you may need to issue a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice to the hosting provider of the infringing site.
It's also important to monitor for instances of unauthorized brand use more broadly. There are various tools and methods to monitor unauthorized brand use in email marketing and across the web. These can help you identify quickly when your content is being scraped and misused.
Preventing content scraping
Implementing technical deterrents can also help. While disabling RSS feeds entirely is an option, it also removes a valuable content distribution channel. A more balanced approach is to use settings that limit the content syndicated through the feed to summaries, as discussed previously. Additionally, consider how you protect email list sign-up forms, as content scrapers might also attempt to use automated methods to sign up for newsletters, leading to subscription bombing or bot sign-ups.
Legal aspects of RSS content
Another facet of content protection is understanding the legal implications of using RSS feed content from third-party sites. While RSS feeds provide an excellent gateway to access a website's offerings, they come with essential copyright guidelines. Most RSS feeds offer partial content to encourage users to visit the original site, which aligns with standard journalistic practices and helps maintain traffic flow.
However, using full RSS feed content in a third-party application, even a free one, can be legally problematic without explicit permission. The legal situation regarding using third-party news site's RSS feeds content in an app is often governed by copyright law and the terms of service of the original content provider. Just because an RSS feed is available does not mean its content is free for unrestricted use or republication. It is important to remember that all works are copyrighted by default, even without an explicit notice.
If you plan to use third-party RSS feeds, always review the website's terms of use or contact the owner for syndication permissions. Ignoring these can lead to legal issues, including DMCA takedowns, and can negatively impact your own domain's reputation. Operating ethically in the content ecosystem benefits everyone involved and contributes to a more trustworthy online environment.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always check a website's /feed or /rss URL extensions first, as they are common for finding RSS feeds.
Use your browser's 'View Page Source' and search for 'RSS' or 'feed' to locate the specific feed URL in the HTML header.
Configure your RSS feed to publish only summaries or excerpts to drive traffic to your main site and protect full content.
Clearly state your content's terms of use and copyright on your website to deter unauthorized content scraping.
Proactively monitor for unauthorized use of your content across the web to protect your intellectual property.
Common pitfalls
Assuming all RSS feeds grant permission for full content republication; always verify terms of use.
Failing to restrict RSS feed content, which can lead to widespread scraping and loss of direct website traffic.
Neglecting to apply copyright notices or terms of use, though content is copyrighted by default, clarity helps.
Ignoring signs of content scraping, which can degrade your content's uniqueness and potentially harm search rankings.
Not considering DMCA takedown notices as a legal recourse for severe content theft from RSS feeds.
Expert tips
Regularly validate your RSS feed URL using an RSS validator to ensure it functions correctly.
Consider using a content delivery network (CDN) to help protect against excessive scraping and DDoS attacks.
For WordPress sites, explore plugins that offer advanced RSS feed customization and security features.
Set up alerts for mentions of your content or brand online to catch unauthorized usage early.
If your content is being scraped and affecting your domain, review your blocklist (or blacklist) status.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says finding the RSS feed can be tricky if you're not familiar with HTML, but it's a common feature for websites.
2019-11-26 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says they use an aggregator for their feeds and it works well for staying updated.
2019-11-26 - Email Geeks
Maintaining content integrity and reach
RSS feeds remain a valuable tool for content distribution and discovery, enabling your audience to stay updated effortlessly. By understanding how to locate these feeds, strategically manage the content they syndicate, and proactively protect your original work from unauthorized use, you can harness their benefits while safeguarding your intellectual property.
Always prioritize ethical content sharing practices, both as a publisher and as a consumer of third-party feeds. This includes respecting copyright laws and leveraging available tools and legal avenues to ensure your content receives the protection it deserves.
