QDIS Blog

While the Yahoo advanced search page has a pop up menu to limit the file format results to only web (rss or atom) feeds, Google does not. Google does allow you to limit your search to other file formats but unfortunately rss/xml is not one of them. However, you can get the results you want by taking advantage of the advanced syntax Google has available. One of those is the “inurl” command. Almost all feeds contain one of several key words within the url. This includes xml, atom, rss rdf, and feed. While not all inclusive, this will find the vast majority of feeds. Here is an example search for feeds related to science:

science inurl:(rss OR rdf OR atom OR xml OR feed)

You need to make sure and include the colon and that there is no space between the colon and the left parenthesis.

While this is not a perfect solution, it does go a long way towards allowing you to use Google to find only web (rss) feeds. If you enjoyed this tip, then be sure to listen to the soon to be posted Searching the Internet podcast episode 2 where I’ll discuss the various advanced commands in Google and Yahoo as well as other search engine related topics.

Technorati Tags: Google, inurl, search engine, web feed

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