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What is RSS Lookup?
RSS Lookup is a free, open-source tool at RSS Lookup that finds the RSS feed for a website. You paste in a URL, and it checks whether that site has a feed you can subscribe to.
It works in two passes: it first fetches the page and looks for RSS link tags in the HTML, then, if nothing turns up, it tries a few common feed paths. That second step matters because plenty of sites still publish a working feed without advertising it properly in their page markup.
What it's useful for
- You want to follow a site in an RSS reader but can't see a subscribe button.
- You're checking whether an old blog or news site still maintains a feed.
- You want a feed URL to paste into a reader, feed-to-email service or automation tool.
What to expect
A feed URL on its own does nothing. You need a client or service to subscribe to it. And a failed lookup doesn't always mean no feed exists — the site may simply not have one, or may have configured its RSS link tags incorrectly.
A bookmarklet is offered, so you can run a lookup while you're already on the site you're curious about rather than copying the URL elsewhere.
A practical next step
If you're evaluating a site for regular reading, paste its URL into RSS Lookup first. If a feed comes back, add it to your reader; if not, decide whether the site is worth checking manually or whether an alternative source covers the same material.
How do I find the RSS feed for a specific website using RSS Lookup?
Paste the site's URL into the search field on RSS Lookup and submit it. The tool fetches that page, looks for RSS <link> tags in the HTML, and if it finds none, checks a few common feed paths. Any feed it locates is returned as a URL you can copy into a reader.
For repeated use, drag the bookmarklet from the page to your bookmarks bar. Then, when you're on a site you want to follow, click the bookmarklet instead of switching tabs and pasting the URL manually.
If no feed is found
That usually means the site genuinely has no RSS feed, or its HTML link tags are misconfigured. RSS Lookup only reports what exists; it doesn't generate a feed for a site that lacks one. In that case your options are a site-specific newsletter or notification setting, or a third-party feed-building service — each with its own reliability trade-offs.
A practical scenario
Suppose you read a niche blog and want new posts in your feed reader rather than checking the site. Run the blog's homepage through RSS Lookup, copy the feed URL, and add it to your reader. If the search comes back empty, try the blog's /feed or /rss address directly before concluding there's no feed.
The bookmarklet is the faster habit for one-off lookups; the paste-a-URL form is better when you're checking several sites in a row.
What should I do if RSS Lookup can't find any feeds for a website?
If RSS Lookup reports nothing for a site, the most likely explanation is that the site simply does not publish an RSS feed. RSS Lookup first checks the page's HTML for feed link tags and then probes a few common feed paths; if neither turns up anything, there may be nothing to find. Before giving up, try a few quick checks.
What to try next
- Test the obvious feed URLs by hand. Add
/feed,/rss,/rss.xml,/feed.xmlor/atom.xmlto the site's root or blog section and see whether a page of XML appears. Some sites only expose feeds on section pages, so try a category or tag URL too. - Look for a feed icon or "Subscribe" link. Many publishers still show an RSS or Atom icon in the footer, header or sidebar even when their markup is incomplete.
- Try the site's own search or newsletter page. If a feed genuinely does not exist, email newsletters or the site's social accounts are often the only way to follow new posts.
- Check whether the content is aggregated elsewhere. If the site is a small blog or a niche publication, its posts may be syndicated on a platform that does offer feeds. For example, if the site is a Substack publication, the feed is usually at the publication's own domain with
/feedappended; if it is a WordPress site,/feedat the end of the site URL is the standard location.
A concrete scenario
Suppose you want to follow a small independent magazine that has no visible RSS link. You paste its homepage into RSS Lookup and get no results. You then try example.com/feed and example.com/rss.xml manually, and still nothing. At that point the practical options are subscribing to the magazine's newsletter, following it on a social platform, or using a service that can generate a feed from a page — though generated feeds are fragile because they depend on the page's structure staying the same.
How to decide
| Situation | Best move |
|---|---|
| You need the feed for a site you check daily | Spend a few minutes testing common feed paths and looking for a subscribe link |
| The site is a blog on a known platform | Try the platform's standard feed path first |
| No feed exists and you only want occasional updates | Newsletter or social follow is usually less work than maintaining a scraper |
| You need a feed for many sites | A feed-generation service may be worth it, but expect occasional breakage |
The underlying reason feeds go missing is worth remembering: RSS is optional, and many modern sites never configured it or let their HTML link tags lapse. RSS Lookup can only find what the site exposes, so a negative result is a signal about the site, not a failure of the lookup itself.
How does the RSS Lookup bookmarklet work and how do I install it?
The bookmarklet is a browser bookmark that runs RSS Lookup on whatever page you are currently viewing, so you don't have to copy the URL and paste it into the site manually.
How it works
- You install a small bookmark containing JavaScript instead of a web address.
- When you click it while on any site, it sends that page's URL to RSS Lookup.
- RSS Lookup then fetches the page, looks for RSS link tags in the HTML, and falls back to checking a few common feed paths if none are found.
- The results appear in your browser, showing any feeds that exist for that site.
The key point: the bookmarklet doesn't scan the page in your browser itself. It hands the current URL to RSS Lookup, which does the fetching and searching server-side. That's why it works the same as pasting the URL into the site directly.
Installing it
- Open RSS Lookup and find the bookmarklet link on the page.
- Make sure your browser's bookmarks bar is visible (usually toggled with Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows/Linux or Cmd+Shift+B on Mac).
- Drag the bookmarklet link onto the bookmarks bar. Don't click it yet — dragging is what installs it.
- To test, load any site and click the new bookmark. You should land on RSS Lookup with results for that page.
If dragging doesn't work, you can create a new bookmark manually and paste the bookmarklet's JavaScript code into the URL/location field. Some mobile browsers make bookmarklet installation awkward, so this is mostly a desktop tool.
When it's worth using
The bookmarklet saves the copy-paste step, which matters if you check many sites in a row — for example, when you're deciding which blogs to follow in a feed reader and want to quickly test each one. If you only check a site occasionally, pasting the URL into the main search box is just as good.
One limitation to expect: if a site has no feed, or has one that isn't declared in its HTML and isn't at a common path, the bookmarklet will come up empty. That's a property of the site, not the tool. For a broader look at feed discovery across the web, you can compare with About Feeds, which explains the format for newcomers, or use a reader like Feedly once you have a feed URL in hand.
Can I use RSS Lookup for sites that don't have RSS feeds?
No. RSS Lookup only detects feeds that actually exist. If a site has no feed, or has one that isn't linked properly in its HTML, the tool will often return nothing.
What it actually does, based on the site's own description: it fetches the URL you paste, looks for RSS <link> tags in the HTML, and if none are found it probes a few common feed paths. So it's a finder, not a generator — it can't invent a feed for a site that doesn't publish one.
When it still helps on a "feedless" site
- The site does have a feed but hasn't advertised it in its HTML — the common-path check may still surface it.
- You're unsure whether a feed exists at all, and want a quick yes/no before hunting manually.
- You want to check several sites in a row using the bookmarklet rather than pasting URLs one at a time.
When it can't help
- The site genuinely publishes no feed (common for many modern news and social platforms).
- The feed exists behind a login or is otherwise not publicly reachable.
- You need the feed content — RSS Lookup finds the URL; you still need a feed reader such as Feedly or Inoreader to subscribe.
A practical next step
If RSS Lookup comes up empty, try a third-party feed-building service that watches a page for changes and outputs a feed. RSS.app and FetchRSS are established options for that; both work by scraping a page you specify rather than by reading an existing feed, so they're a different category of tool with their own reliability trade-offs. For a site you check often, that's usually a better fallback than refreshing the page by hand.
What data does RSS Lookup collect about my searches?
RSS Lookup says it does not keep track of the specific URLs you search. According to its own FAQ, the only data involved is rate-limiting information stored in Upstash Redis and anonymous analytics from Umami — not a log of the sites you look up.
That distinction matters if you're researching sensitive or internal URLs. The tool's stated design is to avoid recording your queries, but "anonymous analytics" still means aggregate usage data (such as page visits or tool usage counts) is collected by a third-party service. Rate limiting also inherently processes your request temporarily to enforce usage limits.
If you want to check it yourself, open RSS Lookup and read the linked Privacy and Terms pages before pasting any URL you'd rather not share. For a stricter setup, consider running the open-source project yourself rather than using the hosted version.
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