WordPress generates RSS 2.0, and Atom 1.0 feeds automatically for your posts. Links to these feeds are available in your site’s footer if you’re using the default theme, and can be added to other themes using the Meta widget. If you’re using a browser (like Firefox) that discovers feeds automatically, you’ll see that both feeds are available on every page of your site. Both feeds display your most recent posts, as determined by the number you choose on the Reading Settings panel.
If you’ve set up permalinks, you can find your feeds by adding /feed (for RSS) or /feed/atom to your site’s URL. If you haven’t set up permalinks, you can use the query string URL format instead: /?feed=rss2 or /?feed=atom. WordPress also includes feeds for the most recent comments on your post. The number of comments displayed, like the number of posts, is based on the number you chose in the Readings Settings panel.
However, WordPress generates a number of other feeds in addition to those for posts and comments. There’s a feed for each of your categories and tags. You can get feeds of the posts written by an individual author. You can even get feeds for search results! Since WordPress doesn’t advertise these hidden feeds, you’ll have to do a little URL manipulation to find them. Of course, once you’ve located them, you can place the links somewhere in your theme so your visitors can find them too.
| Feed Type | Default URL | Clean URL3 |
| Posts RSS 2.0 (default) | /?feed=rss2 | /feed or /feed/rss2 |
| Posts Atom 1.0
| /?feed=atom | /feed/atom |
| Posts RSS 0.92
| /?feed=rss | /feed/rss |
| Posts RDF
| /?feed=rdf | /feed/rdf |
| Comments
| /?feed=comments-rss2 /?feed=comments-atom | /comments/feed /comments/feed/atom |
| Category(ID: 1 slug: news)
| /?feed=rss2&cat=1 /?feed=atom&cat=1 | /category/news/feed /category/news/feed/atom |
| Tag (slug: book) | /?feed=rss2&tag=book /?feed=atom&tag=book | /tag/book/feed /tag/book/feed/atom |
| Multiple Tags (slugs: book,apress) | /?feed=rss2&tag=book+apress /?feed=atom&tag=book+apress | /tag/book+apress/feed /tag/book+apress/feed/atom |
| Taxonomy Term (genre: mystery) | /?feed=rss2&genre=mystery /?feed=atom&genre=mystery | /genre/mystery/feed /genre/mystery/feed/atom |
| Search Term (apress) | /?feed=rss2&s=apress /?feed=atom&s=apress | /feed/?s=apress /feed/atom/?s=apress |
| Content Types (page, course) | /?feed=rss2&post_type=page /?feed=atom&post_type=course | /feed/?post_type=page /feed/atom/?post_type=course |
| Links OPML1.0
| /wp-links-opml.php | n/a |
While WordPress generates lots of feeds for you, most of them aren’t visible to your users. Create links in your theme files or a text widget if you want to make them available.
Are there any more that I’ve overlooked? Let me know in the comments section below!