Use the generated feed for the correct site and scope. Choose full text or useful excerpts in Reading, then verify the source output and a logged-out reader separately before sharing the link.
A normal WordPress site already has a feed for its recent posts. You usually do not need another plugin to offer RSS. Find the feed generated by your installation, choose whether it carries full articles or excerpts, and test the result in a feed reader before advertising it to visitors.
This guide covers the standard feeds of self-hosted WordPress, with official documentation checked on 13 October 2026. Custom podcast feeds, membership feeds and newsletter integrations can apply their own rules. The checks below are a workflow for your site, not a claim that we have tested your feed.
Understand what readers are subscribing to
RSS is a structured publication format that a reader application can retrieve. The feed contains a channel and its items, rather than the whole website interface. An item can provide a title, article link, publication date and a summary or content. The RSS 2.0 specification describes these elements.
For a public blog, this gives people another way to follow new writing without receiving an email from you. The site publishes the feed; the reader decides how to retrieve and display it. Do not promise instant notifications or a particular refresh interval across all applications.
A feed subscription is different from a newsletter subscription. It does not, by itself, add the reader’s email address to your mailing list or give you permission to send marketing messages. If you also offer email, explain the two choices separately. Our newsletter setup guide follows the email signup and test-message route.
Find the feed belonging to the correct WordPress site
For an installation served at https://example.com/, the main posts feed commonly appears at https://example.com/feed/. A query-style RSS 2.0 address is https://example.com/?feed=rss2. These are examples, not URLs to paste unchanged into your own navigation.
WordPress builds the actual address from the site’s front-end URL and permalink configuration. Its get_feed_link() reference documents both pretty-permalink and query-string output. If the public WordPress site lives under a path such as /journal/, its feed may live there too. A server folder name alone does not establish the public feed address.
- Open the public site you want readers to follow, rather than a different installation in the same hosting account.
- Look for a clearly labelled RSS or Subscribe via RSS link in its footer or navigation.
- If none is visible, inspect the page source for an alternate RSS feed link and copy its exact destination.
- Open that destination logged out, then add it to a feed reader and check its title and article links.
WordPress can output feed discovery links in the document head through feed_links(). Themes and plugins affect what is actually present. A missing orange icon does not prove the feed is disabled, and an icon leading to the homepage does not prove it is configured.
Choose the posts feed, not an unrelated feed
WordPress distinguishes content feeds from comments feeds. A comments feed follows discussions, rather than publishing a normal list of your articles. The official feed overview explains this distinction. Check the feed’s title and items before labelling it Latest articles.
The ordinary main blog feed follows posts. It is not a feed of every navigation destination, page edit or item in the media library. Publishing an About page therefore does not mean it should appear alongside new blog posts. WordPress’s query reference documents how post types and feed queries are selected; extensions can change that selection.
A category feed can serve a narrower interest, such as a site’s WordPress tutorials. WordPress provides category feed links for this purpose. Prefer the generated link or a verified archive feed over guessing the category base, especially when that base has been customised.
For example, a small publication could offer All articles and WordPress articles as two explicit feed choices. It should not label the second one All updates. Test each with a recently published post in the relevant category and another outside it.
Set full text or excerpts in Reading
Open Settings → Reading in the correct installation. Under For each article in a feed, show, choose Full text or Excerpt; some interfaces describe the latter as Summary. Save Changes. The Reading settings documentation defines this control.
| Choice | What it is for | What to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Full text | Let readers consume the article’s feed content inside their reader | Useful text, headings, links and any important limitations survive outside the website layout |
| Excerpt or Summary | Offer a short introduction with a route to the article | The summary is meaningful and the item opens the correct public article |
Choose according to the reading experience you want, rather than a promised SEO or revenue effect. A reader who prefers complete articles may value Full text. A publication whose articles depend on detailed interactive examples may prefer an honest excerpt that points to the complete page.
The Blog pages show at most control is separate from Syndication feeds show the most recent. Changing the former is not the way to change the number of feed items. The WordPress Reading lesson demonstrates the distinction. Neither setting creates a complete historical archive in the reader.
Write a useful excerpt and inspect the actual output
When using summaries, write an excerpt that explains the article’s question and outcome. For example: “Find the correct WordPress feed, choose full text or summaries, and diagnose a reader that shows the wrong content.” That helps a reader decide whether to open the article without repeating a vague introduction.
A manual excerpt and automatically generated text can produce different results. Inspect a recent post with a manual excerpt and another without one. WordPress’s feed excerpt output is filterable through the_excerpt_rss, so an extension can also add or alter text.
If you choose Full text but see only a few lines in an application, first inspect the feed itself. A reader may initially show a preview; a plugin may customise the feed; or you may have subscribed to a different endpoint. Changing the same setting repeatedly will not distinguish those causes.
The content-feed reference shows that WordPress processes and filters post content for feeds. Full text therefore does not mean a copy of your entire page, header, sidebar and interactive behaviour. Check essential information in the delivered content, including any disclosure or limitation that must accompany a claim.
Test the feed as a new subscriber
Use a reader you can access without a website administrator session. Add the exact feed address, then open an existing recent item. Record the date of the check, feed URL and item title so a later problem can be compared with a known result.
- The feed identifies the correct site and scope.
- A recent public post appears with a sensible title and date.
- The selected full-text or summary experience is visible.
- Following the item opens its intended article over HTTPS.
- Important links and readable text work without relying on the site’s interactive interface.
- A normal new publication appears after the reader’s next retrieval, without assuming immediate delivery.
A browser might show raw XML, a download prompt or its own display of the feed. That alone is not a failure. Conversely, a normal-looking web page at the address may be an HTML error or login screen. Test what the reader receives, not just whether a browser tab opens.
Diagnose a broken or stale feed safely
For a public feed, the W3C Feed Validation Service can report format problems. Give an external validator only a URL or content that is meant to be public. Do not paste private membership tokens, authenticated feeds or unpublished material into it.
| Symptom | First distinction to make | Focused next check |
|---|---|---|
| The reader reports invalid XML | Malformed feed versus an HTML error response | Read the validator’s reported location and inspect that response |
| The feed is valid but a post is missing | Wrong feed scope versus an unpublished or old item | Check the post’s public status, date, category and feed item limit |
| The feed is current but the reader is stale | Source output versus reader retrieval/cache | Refresh through the reader’s supported controls and compare the same item |
| A security or login page appears | Access control versus content formatting | Check whether the public feed is intentionally restricted and ask the site operator to review that route |
Unexpected debug output, a feed customisation or a plugin conflict can require technical investigation. Preserve the exact error and reproduce changes in a controlled test environment. Do not disable the site’s security globally, alter unrelated domains or paste unreviewed server rules merely to make one reader accept a URL.
Full text versus excerpts is not an access-control decision. Summaries do not make publicly available articles private or prevent copying their website pages. Likewise, an ordinary RSS feed is not a private delivery channel for confidential information.
Give the working feed a stable, understandable link
Once verified, add a text link such as Subscribe via RSS using the theme’s supported navigation or footer controls. Explain whether it follows all posts or a particular category. Avoid implying that clicking it sends an email or creates an account on your site.
Keep the feed address in your domain-migration checklist so existing subscribers are not abandoned when the site moves. If your concern is an incorrectly configured article index, fix that separately with our homepage and blog-page guide. A feed and the visible Blog page serve different interfaces.
Finally, treat RSS as another reader route, not an indexing guarantee or a complete audience measurement system. Our analytics and Search Console guide explains the different questions those tools answer. Keep the feed useful and testable without inventing a subscriber count from ordinary website visits.
Sources and verification
Editorial review 2026-10-13. Source check dates are recorded separately. Notes describe what each source supports and its limits.
View sources
- RSS Advisory Board: RSS 2.0 specificationChecked RSS as XML syndication, channel and item fields, publication dates, summaries/content and optional retrieval hints.
Limits: No universal reader refresh interval, client layout or immediate delivery guarantee is inferred. - WordPress: get_feed_link()Checked Feed URLs generated from the front-end home URL, rewrite configuration and query-string fallback.
Limits: Example domains are illustrative. Filters, installation paths and permalink choices can change the actual URL. - WordPress: feed_links()Checked Theme support and filterable alternate discovery links for posts and comments feeds in the document head.
Limits: The function reference does not establish that a particular live theme outputs those links. - WordPress: feeds overviewChecked Built-in content-feed versus comments-feed distinction and the possibility of customised feeds.
Limits: Legacy format examples are not presented as a recommendation or a current per-site inventory. - WordPress: WP_Query referenceChecked Feed queries, post-type selection and the normal post default rather than every page or media item.
Limits: Extensions and explicit queries can change the output. No custom post-type feed is assumed to exist. - WordPress: get_category_feed_link()Checked Generated feed destinations for posts in a chosen category.
Limits: Category bases and exact site routes require actual verification; no guessed route is promised. - WordPress: Reading settingsChecked Full-text versus excerpt feed setting, syndication item count, separate blog page count and Save Changes.
Limits: Specialised feed plugins may override core behaviour. A summary is not access control or copying prevention. - Learn WordPress: managing Reading settingsChecked Separate feed and blog counts, updated feeds on publication and summaries using post excerpts.
Limits: No fixed count, performance benchmark or guaranteed retrieval speed is recommended. - WordPress: the_excerpt_rss filterChecked Feed excerpt output is filterable.
Limits: This does not identify which plugin, if any, changes a particular site's feed. - WordPress: get_the_content_feed()Checked Post content processing through content and feed filters.
Limits: Full text is not a promise to reproduce an entire webpage or interactive frontend in a reader. - W3C: Feed Validation ServiceChecked External RSS and Atom validation service accepts a public feed address or content.
Limits: No feed was submitted or validated for this article. Advice to avoid sharing private tokens is editorial operational guidance.