Back to Support Content and Media Blocks RSS Block

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.

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.

Image showing how to insert an RSS block by typing /rss
Adding a RSS block with the slash command

For more information, visit our detailed instructions on adding blocks.

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:

Image showing the RSS block interface
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:

And the same feed, but in a grid view:

Block Toolbar

The RSS block toolbar shows the following options:

Image showing the RSS block's toolbar
RSS block toolbar

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If you do not see the option to change the width of the block to wide or full-width and your theme supports these options, it is possible the block has been added to a Group block. You can learn more about the Group block here.

Block Settings

When you select a block, you will find additional block settings in the right sidebar. If you do not see the sidebar, you may need to click the Settings icon in the top-right corner to bring up the settings. This icon looks like a square with two uneven columns:

The settings icon in the Editor with a tooltip "Settings" below it.
Click the Settings icon to open the block settings

In the block settings in the right sidebar, you can choose the number of items that will display from the RSS feed. The maximum number of items is 10. The most recent items will always be shown.

You can also choose to display or hide the author’s name, the date of publication, and the post’s excerpt.

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:

OptionDescriptionChoicesDefault Setting
show_titleDisplay the article title (If titles are hidden, links will be automatically hidden as well.)true, falsetrue
show_linksDisplays the article title as a linktrue, falsetrue
show_summaryDisplays an excerpt of the articletrue, falsetrue
show_authorDisplays the author of the articletrue, falsefalse
show_dateDisplays the date the article was publishedtrue, falsefalse
reverseReverses the order of the listed articlestrue, falsefalse (most recent at top)

Examples

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

Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 10.17.06 a

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

Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 10.17.52 a

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

Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 10.18.15 a

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:

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