What Is An RSS Feed And Why Does AO3 Have Them?

what is an RSS feed and why does AO3 have them?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and the word syndication here is referring to broadcasting or transferring or otherwise sharing information. I first encountered it as a way to aggregate all of the news sites and blogs I wanted to read that were scattered all over the internet.

You might already be familiar with tumblr blogs that start with ao3feed - these are automated blogs that create a new post every time a work is posted in the feed(s) that they track. You can follow those tumblr blogs and learn about new works that way. They've subscribed to the RSS feed so that you don't have to.

If you wish that you could get push notifications from AO3 on your phone instead? The RSS feed will allow you to do that. You just need to get an account with an RSS reader first. Here are a few that are free:

Feedly 

NewsBlur 

Inoreader 

They each have slightly different features, so depending on the search and filter options you want or how you like your information displayed, you might like one better than the others. All three work on the web, on iOS, and on Android.

Once you have a feed reader, tap on the RSS Feed button at the top of the tag results page that you want to get notifications for and open up the XML file. If it downloads instead, try opening in a new tab or just copying the link address. You'll want to grab a url that looks like this: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/9835/feed.atom (this is the url for Kirk/Spock, if you're curious)

That feed.atom ending on the url is what you're looking for. When you open your RSS reader and create a new feed, you can use that url to set it up.

Once it's set up, you'll be able to see everything currently available in that tab, listed out in your reader. Just like the ao3feed tumblr blogs, the reader will show you the title, author, summary and tags for each fic, and then it will provide you with a link to read the work on AO3.

It will also notify you every time a new work is posted to that tag. You can adjust your notifications to suit you.

Not every tag on AO3 has an RSS feed, but it's worth checking out if you've never tried it before.

Editing to add: the AO3 FAQ also talks about these feeds