In the last couple of weeks it happened repeatedly that I wanted to follow a company’s blog – just to see that they have a blog but no RSS feed!
It’s surprising and a bit disheartening to see companies investing time in writing / maintaining a blog without providing an RSS feed – even though any proper content management system would provide the functionality.
I just wonder: How do they expect someone to follow their blog??? It drives the whole purpose of the blog useless.
Could it be, that the knowledge and (thus) usage of RSS is slowly fading away? Likely thanks to LinkedIn, Google, Meta/Facebook, Twitter who wall their content and do not or discontinue RSS support. IF that’s the case, this would really be a pity!
To me it’s an inconvenience because I can’t follow this company’s news. To the companies it is a missed opportunity to bring back interested users.
Is it Worth Asking for RSS?
In the last three cases, I quickly dropped the according company a quick and friendly email and asked them for an RSS feed. The result:
- 1 called me back, asking what I meant and they wanted to check with their agency (no change after a couple of weeks now)
- 1 have not responded yet
- 1 quickly responded that they check it with their agency and at the same day (!) confirmed that they are going to enable the RSS stream within the next days. Now, isn’t that cool?
Encourage companies to provide RSS Feeds!
If you encounter a company without an RSS feed, please consider reaching out to the press contact or webmaster (usually it can be found in the imprint) and express the importance of RSS and that it benefits both the blog and its readers. Below is a friendly email template you can use.
Email Template:
Subject: Request to Add RSS Feed for [URL]
Dear [Company Name] Team,
I hope this message finds you well. I just found your blog at [URL] and wanted to follow the content you provide.
Yet, I noticed that your blog does not currently offer an RSS feed so that I cannot add it to my Newsreader and thus cannot follow your blog :-(
Would it be possible to implement an RSS feed for your blog? This addition would be highly beneficial to your audience and improve the overall accessibility of your blog. It also helps increase reader engagement and expand the reach of your content.
Thank you for considering this request. I look forward to continuing to enjoy your excellent blog.
Best regards,
[Your Name]
@blog RSS is great and no excuse that big companies can't provide one. However RSS might be daunting idea on small scale/hobby projects without a content management system at all.
I wrote my stuff in text editors mostly (yes, even for commercial sites, web-based anything sucks ass to write on), so doing an RSS feed without manually copy-pasting the text required "coding" a batch file to grab the relevant HTML tags from the website content files and arrange them to the RSS file. That does take some time to write and test thoroughly, but once it is done the RSS file updates itself automatically.
Of course the main reason companies dropped RSS is because they want you to click and visit their website for those sweet sweet ad and tracking money (and to show other companies how many visitors you have when negotiating said ads and campaigns). Whenever something "isn't done" the answer is maximizing profits.
Hey Susanna – yeah fully agree with small private sites!
Actually, I think in case of companies it might even a bit worse: I mean, having a blog with RSS (that is used) would be a great way to get users / customers back to their site *directly* – without having to pay anybody in between.
My theory: The big “social media companies” have trained users that there “is no RSS” (by not implementing or discarding). And nowadays social media managers didn’t grow up with blogs and RSS. I know SO many people who consume their news by following a companies “social” media accounts.
Anyways – it’s just my theory. :-/