To scrape a website feed, find the feed URL the site publishes, retrieve it with an HTTP GET request, identify whether the response is RSS or Atom, and parse its XML with a format-aware parser. Save entry identifiers and HTTP cache validators such as ETag or Last-Modified so later checks can detect changes without repeatedly downloading an unchanged feed.
Find the website’s feed URL
Start with the site itself: check its help or syndication pages, visible feed controls, and links to RSS or Atom. A website may offer multiple feeds, such as separate feeds for different sections. There is no universal filename or endpoint that works across all sites, so do not assume that appending a familiar path will find a feed.
Once you have a candidate URL, retain it as the feed’s starting address. The server may redirect the request; record the final URL as well as the original so you can diagnose changes and fetch it consistently.
Fetch the feed and keep the HTTP details
A feed is an HTTP resource. Send a GET request and keep the status code, response headers, final URL, and body together. A successful HTTP status does not guarantee valid XML, and an error response may contain content that resembles a feed. Keeping transport details lets you distinguish a network or server problem from a parsing problem. The Atom specification and RSS 2.0 specification describe the document formats; HTTP behavior is covered by RFC 9110.
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For a first request, a simple GET is enough. This cURL example follows redirects and saves the body locally:
curl -L -D feed-headers.txt "https://example.com/feed.xml" -o feed.xmlReplace the example URL with the feed address you found. The -D option writes response headers to a file; inspect them alongside the saved document. Check the final HTTP status, content type, and redirect destination before treating the body as a feed.
Tell RSS and Atom apart before parsing
Both formats use XML, but their structures and rules differ. RSS 2.0 has an rss root element, with a channel containing item elements. Atom uses feed and entry documents in the http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom namespace. A namespace-aware parser is essential for Atom: looking only for unqualified element names can make valid entries appear to be missing.
| Format | Document cues | Identity and metadata considerations |
|---|---|---|
| RSS 2.0 | rss root; channel and item elements |
Use publisher-provided item fields. A GUID may be absent or may not be a globally unique identifier. |
| Atom | feed and entry elements in the Atom namespace |
The format specifies IDs for the feed and entries, along with required feed metadata including title and updated timestamp. |
These cues identify the expected model, not a guarantee that a server has labeled or encoded its response correctly. Parse the XML according to the document you actually receive, and handle missing optional fields rather than assuming every publisher supplies the same metadata. See the RSS 2.0 specification and RFC 4287, The Atom Syndication Format.
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Parse entries and persist stable state
Use an XML parser rather than extracting fields with regular expressions. XML namespaces, escaping, and nested content make text-based pattern matching brittle. A feed parser can provide a convenient entry model, but verify that it supports both RSS and Atom, handles Atom namespaces, exposes useful dates and identifiers, and lets your application inspect the HTTP response separately from parsed content.
When storing entries, preserve the source feed URL and the original identifier and timestamps where available. Atom defines entry IDs. RSS item identity depends on what the publisher supplies, so do not assume every item has a GUID or that every GUID is globally unique. If a stable identifier is absent, choose a documented fallback based on the fields your application has and expect that edited entries can affect it.
Store enough data to compare successive polls: the entry identifier, relevant publication or update timestamps, and any fields your application uses. Keep the raw response or an appropriate diagnostic record when you need to investigate parser behavior; avoid treating a transient parse failure as an empty feed and deleting previously stored entries.
Poll efficiently with conditional requests
On the first successful fetch, save the server’s ETag and Last-Modified response headers if present. On later requests, send If-None-Match with the saved ETag. If there is no ETag, a saved Last-Modified value can be sent as If-Modified-Since. If you send both, RFC 9110 gives If-None-Match precedence.
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A 304 Not Modified response means the saved representation remains current: reuse the previously stored body and do not try to parse an empty response as a new feed. A normal successful response supplies a new representation; parse it and replace your saved body and validators with the latest values. The standard explains that conditional requests avoid transferring the selected representation’s data when it has not changed (RFC 9110).
- Fetch the feed and save the body, ETag, and Last-Modified values when returned.
- On the next poll, send
If-None-Matchusing the saved ETag; otherwise useIf-Modified-Sincewith the saved date. - If the response is 304, reuse the saved body and leave parsed entries unchanged.
- If the response contains a new representation, validate and parse it, update entry state, and save the latest validators.
Validators are optional and server-controlled. If a feed does not provide them, fetch normally and compare the parsed identifiers and metadata you persist. Do not assume that a server will honor a validator perfectly or that its cache behavior establishes the freshness of every individual entry.
Respect crawler guidance and access constraints
Check the site’s robots.txt instructions before automated polling and keep requests conservative. RFC 9309 describes rules crawlers are requested to honor, but explicitly distinguishes them from authorization: “These rules are not a form of access authorization.” A path not disallowed by robots.txt is not, by itself, permission to access it; a disallowed path is not necessarily protected by an access-control mechanism. Follow applicable site terms and access requirements rather than treating robots.txt as a permission grant. See RFC 9309.
There is no universal polling interval established by these standards. Follow site-specific guidance, avoid unnecessary repeated requests, and use conditional requests when validators are available.
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Validate and troubleshoot feed failures
When a feed does not parse or its output looks incomplete, separate the fetch, XML, and data-model questions. The W3C Feed Validation Service documentation describes support for RSS and Atom and notes that validation can surface both feed-format and HTTP-related errors.
| Symptom | Likely area to check | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Connection failure or unexpected status | Transport, redirect, server response, or access constraints | Inspect the status, response headers, final URL, and network error before parsing. |
| Body is not well-formed XML | Malformed feed, truncated response, or unexpected non-feed content | Check the saved response body and validate the feed; do not assume the URL returned XML just because it ends in a feed-like path. |
| Atom entries appear to be missing | Namespace handling | Use namespace-aware queries for the Atom namespace, http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom. |
| Expected field is empty | Format differences or optional publisher data | Check the RSS or Atom structure and handle missing fields as valid possibilities where the format permits them. |
| Parser reports no new content after a 304 | Not-modified response handled as a fresh body | Reuse the previously saved representation instead of parsing the 304 response as a new feed. |
| Duplicate or changing stored items | Assumed identity is not stable or present | Review publisher-supplied IDs and timestamps; avoid assuming every RSS item has a globally unique GUID. |
The validator is useful for separating conformance issues from fetch problems, but its output does not replace inspecting the actual HTTP response your application received.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose a parser by the work it must do
A feed-specific parser is useful when it normalizes RSS and Atom entries. A custom XML parser can suit a narrow integration, but then your code must account for the format’s structure, namespaces, optional fields, and errors. A general scraping library may be appropriate if feed parsing is one part of a larger pipeline, provided it preserves access to response headers and status codes.
- Confirm RSS and Atom coverage, including namespace-aware Atom parsing.
- Check encoding and malformed-input behavior against your needs.
- Ensure the HTTP layer exposes redirects, status, ETag, and Last-Modified.
- Look for useful validation and diagnostics so transport errors are not confused with XML errors.
No parser performance ranking is established here; choose based on required format coverage, error handling, and HTTP control rather than an unsupported speed claim.
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Or skip the browser setup
Feeds are structured XML and are usually best fetched directly, not through a browser. If your task also needs a visual capture of a feed page or another URL, ScreenshotNeo offers a one-call screenshot API:
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpSee the ScreenshotNeo API documentation. It removes cookie banners, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture; bot checks, blank pages, and failed loads are never billed. Its response identifies page verdict and billing status in headers. An MCP server provides screenshot tools for AI agents, and 1,000 screenshots per month are free with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Visit ScreenshotNeo for details, or sign up free.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does every website have an RSS or Atom feed?
No. Sites may publish one or more feeds, or none; check the site’s own feed links and help pages rather than assuming a standard endpoint.
Can I use a browser screenshot API to read feed entries?
For machine-readable entries, fetch and parse the RSS or Atom XML directly. A screenshot API is for visual captures, not a replacement for feed parsing.
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