7 Tools To Make An RSS Feed Of Any Website

Posted by Michael Garrett on September 30th, 2007

Considering how popular RSS feeds have become (primarily among blogs, but also elsewhere), I find it annoying when I come across websites that offer constantly updated content in a “feed-friendly” format, but neglect to offer this option.

Other times, I just want a more refined feed of one category of a blog. Some blogs offer multiple RSS feeds for each category, but many do not.

This is why I have compiled a list of online web services which allow anyone to create an RSS feed of any website. Some are very simple while others are more advanced, so depending on your level of expertise, you are sure to find a tool that can help you get the custom RSS feed you are seeking.

1. Feed43 - My personal favorite, Feed43 is definitely not for the faint of heart. With this service I had the most control over the final appearance of the feed, but I also had to take a look at the tutorial to get an understanding of how the syntax works to create variables. If that last statement was too much for you, then this service probably is too. At least I got a well-configured feed from my Profy articles page (which is feedless). Others have used Feed43 to create RSS feeds of MySpace comments.


2. Feedity - This service is simple, but adds a small level of refining to the automatically generated feeds. After users provide the URL of the page to make a feed of, Feedity gives the option of inputting a Start and End block (HTML tags), to notify the service where each post starts and ends. This service was formerly known as FeedTier.

3. Feedmarklet - This tool is probably the simplest and the easiest to use, but it requires manual updating of the feed that you generate. Feedmarklet gives you your own RSS feed instantly, with no sign up required. Using a bookmarklet button in the browser bookmark bar, users can easily add any page to the feed quickly. Not too many features are present here.

4. Dapper - Dapper allows anyone to create Dapps (widgets) that track the content of any website. This can also be used to track the RSS feeds of sites that do not offer one. In terms of features, Dapper has the most diverse selection, but it does require a learning curve. Be sure to check out DapperFox which is a Firefox extension that creates an RSS feed from any page.

5. FeedYes - Yet another of the easy feed creation tools, this one requires nothing more than the URL of the page you wish to transform and a tag. Once the service discovers items for the feed, it is up to you to weed out the unnecessary ones, by setting the minimum and maximum number of characters in a title and by selecting the first and last news items of value. Great for beginners!

6. Ponyfish - I found Ponyfish to be perhaps the easiest to use. After users provide the URL, the service provides a small window of that address, where users must simply click on each link that is to be added to the feed. After this Ponyfish tries to determine a generic URL with your help (using “*” as wildcard symbols), in order to retrieve future items to be added to the feed automatically.

7. Page2RSS - Described as “a service that helps you monitor web sites that do not publish RSS feeds. It will check any web page for updates and deliver them to your favorite RSS aggregator.” This site offers a bookmark toolbar button that provides a quick way to generate a feed while visiting any website.

Hopefully, one of these tools can help you create a customized RSS feed that suits your needs.

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