For the non-geeky bloggers, there is a good chance that you wouldn’t have known about web feeds before using Simplaris Blogcast. For many of you, you still may not understand what a web feed does. Well, don’t worry, by the end of this article, we will have everything cleared up. According to Wikipedia, a Web feed is described as follows:

Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a web site. To provide a web feed, a site owner may use specialized software (such as a content management system) that publishes a list (or “feed”) of recent articles or content in a standardized, machine-readable format. The feed can then be downloaded by web sites that syndicate content from the feed, or by feed reader programs that allow Internet users to subscribe to feeds and view their content.

Almost every blogging platform will create a web feed for your blog, however it is not always immediately clear how to find it. Actually, this is the top support question that I get asked for Simplaris Blogcast. The first thing to know is that your web feed has an address which looks very similar to your blog’s address. For example, my blog’s address is jkwiens.com and my web feed’s address is jkwiens.com/feed. However, you will notice when clicking on the links that the format between the two are very different. Your blog’s address is meant to be read by humans… however, your web feed is meant to be read by computers (like Simplaris Blogcast).

Typically, there are three different methods of finding the web feed address of a blog. The first method and easiest method is to look for links on your blog. A lot of times, people will post their web feed on there blog. Look for links with words like “Feed”, “RSS”, “ATOM”, and “Subscribe”.

As you may have noticed, I have posted important web feeds on this blog’s sidebar

The second method of finding a web feed is to use a feature that most web browsers have built into them. The right side of your browser’s address bar you will find an orange icon. If you click on it, it will list all the web feeds for this webpage.

If you select one of these options, it will take you to the web feed.

The last method for finding your web feed is to use a special tool that I created for all Simplaris Blogcast users. All you need to do is enter your blog’s address and it will find all web feeds attached to this site.