How to create RSS Feed in Joomla 3.x
*Latest updates on 1st Mar 2020
An RSS feed is a crucial feature in Joomla 3.x but not many people fully understand it and know how to use it on a Joomla website. In this post, I will introduce you to RSS, the steps to use it in a website, and recommend some of the best RSS extensions in the market.
1. A brief introduction to RSS and its benefits
RSS is a way to enable website content to be syndicated for usage on other websites and publish frequently changing content, such as news headlines, forum posts, blog comments, video content and calendar events.
For users, the biggest benefit of RSS is that they don’t have to go to each website to see if there is any new content because the content will come to them in one centralized place. By using an RSS feed, users can easily scan through all the headlines, then read a snippet of each article to choose which they want to read more of.
For business owners, RSS feeds benefit them differently. By creating an RSS feed on their site, they can encourage visitors to subscribe to their content, which means you can turn a visitor into a frequent reader. Also, you can allow your content to be promoted on many other websites or you can blog with RSS feed. In this way, you can certainly reach out for new customers but also build quality backlinks to your website.
2. How to create RSS feeds in Joomla 3.x
Step 1: Log into your Joomla 3.0 admin dashboard
Step 2: In the top menu, click Extensions -> Module Manager
Step 3: In the top left of the page, click New, select a module type as Syndication Feeds
Step 4: Fill in the title, feed format as RSS 2.0 chooses the position to show the module.
Step 5: Choose the menu to apply the RSS feed. This module will create a Syndicated Feed for the page where the Module is applied.
Step 6: Click Save to save the RSS feed module.
Here is how your RSS feed module displays in frontend (I choose footer position so it will appear in footer area):
3. How to publish RSS feeds in Joomla 3.x
This is how you display RSS feeds from a link (it can be either your site link or another website link) on your Joomla website.
Note that, the link you use to display feeds from must end with ?format=feed&type=rss like this: http://yourwebsitelink.com?format=feed&type=rss
Step 1: Log into your Joomla 3.0 admin dashboard
Step 2: In the top menu, click Components, hover over Newsfeeds -> Categories
Step 3: In the top left of the page, click New.
Step 4: Fill in the title and the description of the RSS feed.
Step 5: Choose the category for the RSS feed.
Step 6: You can even add some images by clicking on the Image button at the end of the page.
Step 7: A window will pop up and you can add your image for the RSS feed.
Step 8: Click Save to save the new RSS feed.
Step 9: Create a News Feeds for this category by going to Components → Feeds and Click New
Step 10: Insert the link you want to get feeds from. Remember to choose the category which is the category you’ve created above.
Again, the link you use to display feeds from must end with ?format=feed&type=rss. And it must be article related content (i.e. a blog category link, a category list, featured articles etc.). Here I choose to display content from our Joomla Hub Tips and tricks category.
You can also choose which content of the feeds you want to display in the Display tab. For example, I choose to Hide the feed’s images:
Now, go to front-end, refresh to see the result:
And here’s how Joomla Feeds display in our Joomla 3.x templates:
My recommended extensions for RSS feeds in Joomla
1. Simple RSS Feed Reader
As its name, the extension is not just easy to install but to use. All of our 10 steps above could be reduced in one single module. Once installed, you just need to go in the module control, find Simple RSS Feed Reader module, add your source link as description and choose a position. Really simple isn't it.
Moreover, being used as a module so it can take the style of your template perfectly. You don't have to worry about the design not fit with your current template.
Some of the extension's notable features:
- Free and simple to use
- Input unlimited feed resources
- Comes 2 default module style.
- Automatically resize your image for fast loading.
- Be able to configure many extra setting: description, cache, request timeout.
2. gsRSSFeed
Work as a module like Simple RSS, despite working like a charm and free to use. There is not much to say about this extension. Grant you the options to control normal setting of RSS Feed like: Feed URL, Item, and the number of characters.
If you have some knowledge about HTML, you can modify the design of its display template.
3. JoomlaRSS
The latest player in this field. With $59 on price, it works as a full extension not just being a module like those 2 above. You can manage your RSS feed to the fullest.
The outstanding features of this extension lie on the ability to input source from 3rd-party Joomla extension like ZOO, FLEXIcontent, VirtueMart, DocMan, etc. With this, your feed source has no limitations.
Take a look at some interesting features of JoomlaRSS:
- Manage and display all RSS Feeds in one place.
- Randomize the feed
- Input strip tags & Keywords Filter
- Be able to merge two or more RSS sources (both internal or external source) into one feed
- Multiple formats support for your Feed, such as: RSS, Atom, HTML and JSON
- Integrated with Feedburner seamlessly.
- Auto-create RSS Feed on the live bookmark
- Friendly URL ie: http://yourdomain.com/news.rss.
- Create particular RSS Feeds for each language.
- Place banners for each Feed.
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