What Is a Newsroom RSS Feed?
A newsroom RSS feed is an XML file at a fixed URL that lists a company’s latest press releases, each with a title, link and date, so feed readers, monitoring tools and search engines can pick up new releases without visiting the newsroom.
The RSS Advisory Board, which maintains the format, describes RSS as “a Web content syndication format” and “a dialect of XML,” and says every RSS file “must conform to the XML 1.0 specification” (RSS Advisory Board). The current specification is RSS 2.0.11, published on March 30, 2009. Atom, the other common feed format, is an IETF standard, RFC 4287, from December 2005 (RFC 4287).
A feed is not a ranking tool and not a distribution service. It is a cheap, standard way to tell machines that something new is on the newsroom. Our guide to creating an online newsroom lists it among the features journalists and investors expect, and the SEC’s 2008 guidance on company websites names “push” technology, “such as e-mail alerts or ‘RSS’ feeds,” as a way to send new information “to subscribers” (SEC Release 34-58288).
How to Create an RSS Feed for a Newsroom at a Glance
| Step | Action | Expected result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Check whether your CMS already publishes a feed | You find an existing feed URL, or confirm you need one |
| 2 | Decide what the feed carries | One feed for releases, with a stable URL |
| 3 | Write the channel elements | Title, link and description, plus language and dates |
| 4 | Write one item per release | Title, link, description, pubDate and guid for each |
| 5 | Validate the feed | The W3C validator reports a valid feed |
| 6 | Add an autodiscovery link to newsroom pages | Browsers and readers find the feed from the page |
| 7 | Submit the feed in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools | Search engines get a list of recent release URLs |
| 8 | Publish the feed URL on the newsroom | Journalists and investors can subscribe |
Time: 15 minutes if your CMS makes the feed, an hour or two to hand-build one. Tools: your CMS or a text editor, the W3C Feed Validation Service, Search Console. Cost: free. Skill level: beginner to intermediate.
What You Need Before Starting
You need a newsroom where each release has its own permanent URL, and access to either your CMS settings or your site’s files. A feed points to pages; if releases live only as PDFs or in a single long page, fix that first. You also need to know who will keep the feed correct: a feed that stops updating is worse than none, because subscribers assume there is no news.
Step 1: Check Whether Your CMS Already Publishes a Feed
Look for a feed before building one, because most blogging and newsroom systems create it automatically. WordPress, for example, generates RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds among its built-in feed types, and says “The first four feeds display recent updates and changes to your site’s content” (WordPress Developer Resources). Open your newsroom page, view its source and search for application/rss+xml; if a link is there, that is your feed. If the newsroom is a category or section of a larger site, check whether the system offers a feed for that section alone, so the feed carries releases rather than every blog post.
Step 2: Decide What the Feed Carries
Carry press releases and other formal announcements in one feed with a URL that will not change. This is our recommendation, not a rule of the format. A journalist who subscribes wants releases, not job ads or event photos. If you also publish media statements or investor news, give them a separate feed. The RSS autodiscovery specification allows several feeds per page but says publishers “should include only one autodiscovery link per page, using it to identify a site’s main feed” (RSS Advisory Board). Choose a short, permanent address such as /newsroom/feed.xml; changing it later breaks every subscription.
Step 3: Write the Channel Elements
The channel needs a title, a link to the newsroom page and a one-sentence description, and benefits from a language code and a build date. The specification says the title is “how people refer to your service” and, if a website carries the same information, “the title of your channel should be the same as the title of your website” (RSS Advisory Board). Optional elements worth adding are language, lastBuildDate (“the last time the content of the channel changed”) and image for a logo, within the size limits shown in the chart below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Example Co. Newsroom</title>
<link>https://www.example.com/newsroom/</link>
<description>Press releases and announcements from Example Co.</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<lastBuildDate>Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<!-- items go here -->
</channel>
</rss>The root element is rss with a version attribute, which the specification says “must be 2.0” for this version, and it contains a single channel.
Step 4: Write One Item per Release
Give each release an item with its headline as the title, the release URL as the link, a one- or two-sentence summary as the description, its publication date and a permanent guid. Only a title or description is strictly required, but feed readers and monitoring tools need the rest to show the release properly.
<item>
<title>Example Co. Opens Its First Office in Denver</title>
<link>https://www.example.com/newsroom/example-co-opens-denver-office</link>
<description>Example Co. will open a 40-person office in Denver in January 2027.</description>
<pubDate>Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.example.com/newsroom/example-co-opens-denver-office</guid>
</item>Three rules from the specification matter for releases (RSS Advisory Board):
- Dates. “All date-times in RSS conform to the Date and Time Specification of RFC 822,” with four-digit years preferred, as in
Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT. - GUIDs. A guid “uniquely identifies the item,” and an aggregator “may choose to use this string to determine if an item is new.”
isPermaLinkdefaults to true, meaning the guid is read as a URL. Never change a guid after publishing, or readers may show the release twice. - Future dates. If a pubDate is in the future, “aggregators may choose to not display the item until that date.” May, not must: do not use a future date as an embargo.
Write the description as the release’s summary paragraph, in plain words. Feed readers often show it on its own, so the advice in our guide to writing a press release about a self-contained first paragraph applies here too. If the newsroom publishes audio or video, the enclosure element carries a media file and needs three attributes: url, length in bytes and a MIME type.
How Big Can the Feed’s Logo Be?
The RSS 2.0 channel image can be at most 144 pixels wide and 400 pixels tall, and defaults to 88 by 31 if no size is given. The specification says the image must be a GIF, JPEG or PNG (RSS Advisory Board).
Pixels
Source: RSS Advisory Board, “RSS 2.0 Specification,” version 2.0.11, March 30, 2009, <image> sub-element of <channel>. Read November 1, 2026.
These limits apply to the optional channel logo only. The RSS 2.0 specification defines no image element for individual items; feed readers that show article images use extensions or the item description.
The chart shows that the format was designed for small badge-sized logos, so supply a compact version of the company mark rather than the full press-kit file.
Step 5: Validate the Feed
Run the feed URL through the W3C Feed Validation Service and fix every error before you announce it. W3C describes the tool as “a free service that checks the syntax of Atom or RSS feeds,” and it accepts a URL or pasted XML (W3C Feed Validation Service). The most common breakages are unescaped ampersands in headlines, dates that are not in RFC 822 form, and a character encoding that does not match the XML declaration. Validate again after any template change.
Step 6: Add an Autodiscovery Link to Newsroom Pages
Put a link element with rel="alternate" and type="application/rss+xml" in the head of the newsroom and release pages. The autodiscovery specification says the link “must be placed within a web page’s head element,” and that the type value “must be lowercase for autodiscovery” (RSS Advisory Board).
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"
title="Example Co. Newsroom" href="https://www.example.com/newsroom/feed.xml">It can go on the home page and on any page “where a user might want to know that a feed’s available.” If you offer more than one feed, the specification says the first link should be the site’s main feed. An Atom feed uses application/atom+xml instead (RFC 4287).
Step 7: Submit the Feed as a Sitemap
Submitting the feed in Search Console tells Google about new release URLs quickly, but it supplements a full sitemap rather than replacing one. Google says it accepts “RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 feeds” as sitemaps and that “this feed only provides information on recent URLs” (Google Search Central). The same page says feed sitemaps “can only provide information about videos, not images or news,” and that all formats are limited to 50MB uncompressed or 50,000 URLs. Keep your XML sitemap for the full archive, and use a news sitemap if you want Google News details; see our guide to submitting a sitemap to Google and Bing and our news sitemap guide.
Do not submit the feed to Google News Publisher Center expecting it to be used. Google says “Google News will no longer use RSS feeds or web locations that were submitted in Publisher Center,” in an announcement published February 10, 2025 (Google News Publisher Center Help). Our Publisher Center guide explains what still works there.
Step 8: Publish the Feed URL on the Newsroom
Show the feed address on the newsroom page, beside the email sign-up and media contact, so people can subscribe without hunting for it. Autodiscovery helps software; a visible link helps journalists and investor-relations subscribers. For a listed company, the SEC guidance says push technology is one factor in whether website information is accessible, but adds: “We do not believe, however, that it is necessary that push technology be used” (SEC Release 34-58288). That is a disclosure question for counsel; this is not legal advice.
How to Verify It Worked
The feed works when the validator passes it, a feed reader subscribed from the newsroom page shows the latest release, and Search Console lists the feed as a sitemap with no errors. Publish a test or real release and check that it appears in the feed with the right date and link within your CMS’s publishing cycle. Then check the page source for the autodiscovery link and confirm its href opens the feed.
Common Problems and Fixes
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Validator error on a headline | An unescaped & or < | Escape it as & or wrap text in CDATA |
| Dates rejected or shown wrongly | ISO dates instead of RFC 822 | Use the form Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT |
| Old releases reappear as new | guids changed after a redesign or URL change | Keep the original guid; redirect old URLs |
| Feed carries blog posts and job ads | Site-wide feed used as the newsroom feed | Use a category or section feed for releases |
| Browser or reader cannot find the feed | No autodiscovery link, or type in capitals | Add the head link with lowercase application/rss+xml |
| Search Console reports no images or news data from the feed | Feed sitemaps carry only URLs and video data | Use an image or news sitemap for those |
What Not to Do
Do not put an embargoed release in the feed with a future date. Consequence: the specification only says aggregators “may” hold it, so it can be read early. Correction: publish the item when the embargo lifts; see our embargo guide.
Do not change the feed URL after launch. Consequence: every subscription stops. Correction: pick a permanent address; if you must move, redirect the old one.
Do not ship a feed without validating it. Consequence: one bad character can break the whole file for strict readers. Correction: validate after every template change.
Do not treat the feed as distribution. Consequence: it reaches only those who subscribe or crawl it. Correction: keep pitching and, if needed, a wire service; the feed is a supplement.
Frequently Asked Questions
What tags does an RSS feed require?
In RSS 2.0, the channel requires title, link and description. Each item needs at least a title or a description, though a link, pubDate and guid make a release usable in readers.
What date format does RSS use?
RFC 822, for example Sun, 01 Nov 2026 14:00:00 GMT. The RSS 2.0 specification prefers four-digit years.
Should a newsroom use RSS or Atom?
Either works. Google accepts both RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 feeds as sitemaps, and the W3C validator checks both. Use whichever your CMS produces cleanly.
Does Google News use my RSS feed?
Not through Publisher Center. Google said in 2025 that Google News will no longer use RSS feeds or web locations submitted there. You can still submit a feed to Search Console as a sitemap of recent URLs.
How do I check that my RSS feed is valid?
Paste the feed URL into the W3C Feed Validation Service, a free tool that checks the syntax of RSS and Atom feeds, and fix each error it lists.
Does a public company need an RSS feed for its newsroom?
Not necessarily. The SEC’s 2008 guidance lists push technology such as RSS as one factor in website accessibility but says it is not necessary. This is not legal advice.
Sources and Methodology
This guide is built from the RSS Advisory Board’s RSS 2.0 specification and RSS autodiscovery specification, IETF RFC 4287 (Atom), the W3C Feed Validation Service, Google Search Central’s sitemap documentation, Google News Publisher Center’s February 2025 announcement, WordPress’s feed documentation and the SEC’s 2008 interpretive release on company websites, all read on November 1, 2026. The code samples, the one-feed recommendation, the step order and the embargo advice are ours, not rules of the format. We did not test any particular CMS or feed reader.
- standards RSS Advisory Board, RSS 2.0 Specification (version 2.0.11). Required channel elements, item rules, RFC 822 dates, guid and isPermaLink, future pubDate, enclosure, image size limits. Read November 1, 2026.
- standards RSS Advisory Board, RSS Autodiscovery. Head link element, lowercase type, one main feed per page. Read November 1, 2026.
- standards IETF, RFC 4287: The Atom Syndication Format. Atom date, required feed elements and application/atom+xml media type. Read November 1, 2026.
- standards W3C, Feed Validation Service. Free syntax checker for RSS and Atom, by URI or direct input. Read November 1, 2026.
- platform documentation Google Search Central, Build and submit a sitemap. RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 accepted; recent URLs only; video, not images or news; 50MB and 50,000 URL limits. Read November 1, 2026.
- platform documentation Google News Publisher Center Help, Google News transitions to automatically-generated publication pages. RSS feeds submitted in Publisher Center no longer used. Read November 1, 2026.
- platform documentation WordPress Developer Resources, WordPress Feeds. Built-in RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds. Read November 1, 2026.
- regulator US Securities and Exchange Commission, Commission Guidance on the Use of Company Web Sites (Release 34-58288). Push technology such as RSS as an accessibility factor; not necessary. Read November 1, 2026.