Do you notice when you visit WPBeginner, on the URL bar there is a RSS Icon. Often you will see this icon on sites that have set their RSS Feeds on auto discovery. By setting auto-discovery you are encouraging your users to subscribe, and also you are informing those who don’t know to subscribe as well. Most themes ignore this feature which might be a single most important feature that you should have in your themes. In this tutorial, we will show you how you can setup auto discovery for your WordPress RSS Feeds.
Open your header.php and paste the following codes above the </head> code.
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="<?php bloginfo(‘rss2_url’); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="<?php bloginfo(‘rss_url’); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="<?php bloginfo(‘atom_url’); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> RSS Comments Feed" href="<?php bloginfo(‘comments_rss2_url’); ?>" />Many credible sites in the industry has taken this step to ensure that their readers subscribe to their sites. You should check if these codes are in your header file, if not then then you should add it. Don’t forget if you want to track your RSS Subscribers, then you should redirect your feeds to FeedBurner.
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mohadese esmaeeli says
Hello! Is having an RSS feed field for site SEO dangerous? There are various theories on this matter, and I appreciate it if you share your professional opinion. Also, under what conditions should one use RSS?
WPBeginner Support says
No, having an RSS feed is not dangerous it can even help search engines crawl your content. Most sites should normally have an RSS feed.
Admin
Kyle Alm says
I just implemented this on my blog, is this one of the reasons why CommentLuv doesn’t pickup my “Recent Blog Posts?”
Editorial Staff says
I don’t think that CommentLuv has anything to do with this technique.
Admin
Belinda says
I don’t think you mean below the /head code… I think you mean above it? As in, still within the head tags?? Let me know if I am misunderstanding something.
Editorial Staff says
Yes you are correct. It needs to be within the head tags.
Admin
kf says
Would you mind correcting the entry? It’s only been about 3 years now.
I’ve blown 45 minutes trying to corroborate the above or below /head tag and just for giggles, scrolled down to read comments. No offense, but failing to correct the entry doesn’t give your site credibility. I have a technical site too but I don’t force my visitors to do any more work than they have to. The easier I make it, the more likely they are to give me money. Just sayin…
Editorial Staff says
Fixed it.
Brian Cray says
Never underestimate the small stuff! Nice reminder