Blocks » RSS Block

RSS is a term used to describe a machine-readable version of the content of a blog or a website. You can display content from any site’s RSS feed on your website.

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The RSS Block

Add the RSS block to a page by clicking on the + Block Inserter and searching for RSS. Alternatively, you can type /rss on a new line and press enter.

For more, visit our detailed instructions on adding blocks.

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Displaying an RSS Feed

To add an RSS feed, obtain the feed’s URL (i.e. the link). Some websites display an orange icon on their website for their RSS feed. It’s also common to add /feed to the end of a blog URL to obtain the RSS feed URL. For example, the WordPress.com blog’s feed URL is https://wordpress.com/blog/feed.

When you have the feed URL, you can then paste that directly into the RSS block:

Click Use URL and the RSS feed will be displayed. Here is an example, showing the latest posts in a list view from the WordPress.com blog:

• Celebrating UK Black History Month: Learning Resources, a Read & Watch List, and Content Creation Tools
• Will We See You Tomorrow at WordCamp US 2021?
• A Successful Blogger on Making the Switch
• Expanded Button Formatting, New Spacing Controls, and Drag-and-Drop for List View Now in Block Editor

And the same feed, but in a grid view:

• Celebrating UK Black History Month: Learning Resources, a Read & Watch List, and Content Creation Tools
• Will We See You Tomorrow at WordCamp US 2021?
• A Successful Blogger on Making the Switch
• Expanded Button Formatting, New Spacing Controls, and Drag-and-Drop for List View Now in Block Editor

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Block Toolbar

The RSS block toolbar shows the following options:

1. Align the content left, center, or right (also includes wide and full-width options if supported by your theme)
2. Edit the RSS feed URL you inserted
3. List view to show the content in a list (example above)
4. Grid view to show the content in a grid (example above)

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Block Settings

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Advanced

The advanced tab lets you add a CSS class to your block, allowing you to write custom CSS to style the block. Learn more.

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RSS Shortcode

To use the RSS shortcode, you’ll need the URL of the feed you want to embed. Once you have the feed link, add it to your post or page by converting it into a shortcode using this format:

[rss url=https://wordpress.com/blog/feed]

You can add this shortcode to any page or post using a shortcode block. The number of items displayed from the RSS feed will be determined by the feed owner.

Customizing the RSS Shortcode

There are several ways you can customize your feed:

Option	Description	Choices	Default Setting
show_title	Display the article title (If titles are hidden, links will be automatically hidden as well.)	true, false	true
show_links	Displays the article title as a link	true, false	true
show_summary	Displays an excerpt of the article	true, false	true
show_author	Displays the author of the article	true, false	false
show_date	Displays the date the article was published	true, false	false
reverse	Reverses the order of the listed articles	true, false	false (most recent at top)

Examples

[rss url=https://wordpress.com/blog/feed show_title=false]

[rss url=https://wordpress.com/blog/feed show_author=true show_date=true]

[rss url=https://wordpress.com/blog/feed show_summary=false]

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Troubleshooting

If you’re seeing this error:

An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.

There’s either an error with your feed URL or the feed itself is down. Here are some steps to troubleshoot your RSS feed shortcode:

• Make sure you include http:// or https:// in your domain
• Do not use quotes
• Confirm that your feed URL validates using this feed validator.
• If your feed URL is PHP, the additional parameters at the end may cause issues. Try removing everything after .php including the question mark.