RSS Atom Feeds Not Displaying Topic is solved

[motwguy]

I'm hoping someone can help. I've recently moved to Joomla 4.0. I am using the Cassiopeia template. These lines appear in the source code of pages:

<link href="/feed/rss/" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0">
<link href="/feed/atom/" rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 1.0">

These links don't work and Google's Search Console is complaining.

[sozzled]

It's a good question and, to be totally honest, I can't remember how to create a news feed from a J! website and have it display in a new reader.

That's not to say it can't be done. News feeds seem to have fallen from fashion these days (just saying in passing). I spent half an hour searching on Google; most of the information I found related to older versions of J! (e.g. J! 3.x, J! 2.5 and earlier) so I don't know what's the latest information available for J! 4.x, sorry.

[AMurray]

Are you trying to add third-party feeds to your site (or remove them), or trying to make your site readable in RSS? I don't know that Joomla creates RSS feeds of its own articles by default but extensions are available that do so such as https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/joomrss/

But to add third party news fees to your site:

news-feed_j4.png

That would just display the feed on a page on your site. e.g.if you link to the new feed component via a menu item link. I forget from there if you can then copy that RSS feed URL to the clipboard and copy it to a news-reader.

[sozzled]

Thanks, @AMurray. There doesn't seem to be a problem adding external newsfeeds to a J! 4.x website (at least not in my experience and I've demonstrated it on my "demo" site). The fact that the OP has two <link ...> tags in the source

Code: Select all

<link href="/feed/rss/" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0">
<link href="/feed/atom/" rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 1.0">

suggests to me that the OP is trying to have their website generate a feed and have it detected by a search engine; that's my understandinf of the question. I confess I don't really know how to make J! 4.x do that. It's probably something simple but I forget how it's done.

[AMurray]

I too only found instructions on J3 for adding an RSS Feed of Joomla content (a module called "syndication feeds"). J3.10 still has the module but J4 doesn't. https://docs.joomla.org/Help310:Extensi ... tion_Feeds

Looks like it was quietly removed from J4. Maybe it should be a "legacy" extension maybe not included in the core, but should be listed on the JED like Weblinks.

I stand corrected: Syndication Feeds is in J4. Go to Modules (Site) then search "Feed" which brings up the RSS Feeds and Syndication Feed modules. I may be misunderstanding its purpose but it seems this generates an RSS for the page the module is located on. This may not answer entirely the OP's question.

[sozzled]

@AMurray: Thanks, mate. It's a mystery, isn't it? I don't have any problems "feeding" RSS from my J! 3.x websites but I've never attempted these things in J! 4.x. That's not entirely correct; I have a J! 3.x website migrated to J! 4.x but I haven't published any new articles to test whether they feed to a news reader. It isn't high on my list of priorities because, as I wrote before, new readers seem to have had their "day" and aren't as popularly used much. I can't recall having used Atom feeds in the fifteen years I've been using J!.

[SharkyKZ]

These links don't work

This is not helpful at all. What does not work exactly? What are you seeing when viewing the page? A 404 error, a blank page, a XML parse error, something else?

[sozzled]

Well, slightly off-topic, I remembered how to generate an RSS feed from a J! website. I notice that the source of my pages contain two lines:

<link href="/relative-path?format=feed&amp;type=rss" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0">
<link href="/relative-path?format=feed&amp;type=atom" rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 1.0">

So what? It looks normal to me. Furthermore, I can add the RSS feed into any news reader application. It all looks like it's out-of-the-box and it works.

I have no idea about submitting RSS feeds to Google, however.

[motwguy]

These links don't work

This is not helpful at all. What does not work exactly? What are you seeing when viewing the page? A 404 error, a blank page, a XML parse error, something else?

404.

[SharkyKZ]

Are you using any SEO/SEF extensions? Normally feed URLs are formatted like this: path?format=feed&type=rss. Or path.feed?type=rss if URL suffixes are enabled.

[motwguy]

I am using 4SEO and 4SEF. And indeed, if those are disabled, those lines are not inserted.

Problem solved or at least the culprit has been identified!

[motwguy]

Solved.

[motwguy]

okay, not solved.
After disabling 4SEO and 4SEF I checked an alternate page where there were no feed links, but on further investigation, these links:
<link href="/?format=feed&amp;type=rss" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0">
<link href="/?format=feed&amp;type=atom" rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 1.0">

appear on the Home page (only) regardless of the status of 4SEO and 4SEF.

[SharkyKZ]

Are they also showing 404?

[motwguy]

Are they also showing 404?

These are 404 pages. I have posted in the template forum to see how to remove these lines.

or .. could this be an artifact of Joomla's SEF option?

[SharkyKZ]

It's normal for these links to appear. You can disable them in the component options, Integration tab -> "Show feed links". But it is still not clear why they're generating errors with SEF extensions disabled.

[motwguy]

It's normal for these links to appear. You can disable them in the component options, Integration tab -> "Show feed links". But it is still not clear why they're generating errors with SEF extensions disabled.

This sounds promising! Can you be more specific as to where this link is? I can find an article on Component Options for Joomla 3.X but not for 4.X

[motwguy]

Update: I found "New Feeds" under Components in Global Configuration. I turned every switch off on every tab, saved, cleared the cache, cleared cookies, and reloaded the page. The RSS links still appear in the Home page.

[sozzled]

Update: I found "New Feeds" under Components in Global Configuration.

Please see the following screenshot:

j4.rssFeedLink-options.png

The <links> we're discussing will appear in the HTML source if RSS Feed Link = Show; these "links" will not appear on the rendered page in the browser (unless you have added a module or other feature to display them). The <links> we're discussing will not appear in the HTML source if RSS Feed Link = Hide.

I do not use caching on my websites (especially when I am testing things). Cookies have nothing to do with the matter.

[motwguy]

Yes, I found that late yesterday. The links still appear in the Home page after it is switched off and cache cleared.
https://spicaspeakers.com/

[motwguy]

Joomla bug?

[SharkyKZ]

You turned it off in the wrong component.

[motwguy]

You turned it off in the wrong component.

I turned it off exactly as you described here:

[motwguy]

Screenshot 2023-06-06 141404.png

[sozzled]

There is one other place where feeds are set: the menu item (on the Integration tab). Settings on menu items override default/global settings elsewhere.

See screenshot below:

j4.rssFeedLink-options.menuItem.png

What is the setting for RSS Feed Link in your menu item?

[motwguy]

We have a winner!! Links are gone, thank you @sozzled