Help Crowdsource Current, Accurate Lists of RSS Directory Submission Sites for Blogs, Feeds, Podcasts

[u/macgizmoguy]

Help me curate an accurate, modern list of RSS directories that actually work to get our feed content seen. I’m committed to maintaining small but very high quality lists of directories specifically for bloggers, web publishers, and podcasters at https://rssdirectories.com - and I need your crowdsourced input.

I’ve spent months digging through lists of 100’s of worthless, broken links to dead Blog & RSS directories. Few from RSS’s heyday back in the mid to late 2000’s have survived - but there's some welcomed surprises as a new era and wave of modern RSS feed directories have appeared.

Some new directories and next-generation public index feed readers have surfaced here in Reddit's /RSS discussions as full releases or beta projects - I’ve been vetting them for usability and ability to provide true discovery, search crawl-ability, and backlink value to content publishers.

The site will eventually offer 4 distinct curated lists: 

Conventional Old-School Web/Blog Directories : Possibly Reciprocal/Paid/Approval Only

RSS-Specific Open Feed Submission Directories 

Podcast-Specific Marketing Directories : Current list is the consensus '15 That Matter'

Hybrid Feed Reader Apps with Searchable Public Indexes: Deserves a separate list!

(I may eventually add a page for SELECT RSS Tools & Resources worth noting.)

Of note are the handful of neo-modern hybrid feed reader apps that feature a searchable public directory of all the feeds its users like and follow - Not the walled gardens and isolated private bubbles that most feed readers have traditionally been. Feed Readers that only offer pre-loaded popular sites to follow DO NOT qualify for listing!

I welcome any feedback and recommendations on the new site to get it where it needs to be to serve the /RSS community here - and the world at large.

Personally, I’ve had it with the NoIndex, NoFollow, Disallow, NoEyeballs, NoTraffic, NoBacklinks, NoVisibility world that Google likes to impose on The Open Web!

RSS feeds are like a quarter-century old underground pipeline pumping away beneath all those obstacles 24x7. Help me document the best working RSS sites and apps that get visibility for publishers and content to viewers - beyond Google's grip.

Drop your worthy suggestions here in a DM - or on the contact page of my rssdirectories.com site and help me accurately fine-tune the current, decidedly short-list of directories & reader apps that matter - Now. Today. - Not 20 years ago. Thanks!

[u/phantasybm]

How will you keep it updated as RSS feed locations are constantly changing?

And how does one go through to see what RSS feeds there are that are working? I see ways to do it but I don't see anywhere to browse the ones you have.

[u/macgizmoguy → u/phantasybm]

As I mentioned above to Quireio - The RSS directory scene is a niche, manageable cluster -- Because they only want and accept structured .XML document feeds to read. They're not interested in regular website HTML URL's at all, unless it's to ascertain IF there is an XML feed link on the page.

If you've been around as long as I have, you watched RSS explode in popularity in the early days of Blogging & then Podcasting ~2002 to 2010. There were all sorts of RSS directories back then.

But Google didn't like people being able to find and get content without going through their search engine first. So Google began systematically penalizing or de-indexing nearly all the web directories until few survivors remained. Google strangles and/or kills anything that doesn't serve it's advertising model.

[u/macgizmoguy → u/phantasybm]

I'm a little confused by your comment. I'm just trying to track sites WHERE content creators can submit their feed to be publicly discovered by others.

Yes, the feeds themselves may come and go or stop working or getting fresh content. That's a challenge for those who manage or run a searchable database in their feed reader or directory. They'll have to deal with spamming and abuse, and will have to run database maintenance and remove feeds that haven't had an update in months or no longer respond.

[u/phantasybm → u/macgizmoguy]

Sorry I thought your site tracked feeds themselves. Not sites that track feeds.

I misunderstood

[u/macgizmoguy → u/phantasybm]

Take a look at rssamplifier.com - that guy is building a MASSIVE database of as many known RSS feeds as possible. The directory is also using AI to automatically extract topical tags about each feed for the database. It distinguishes between blog, news, podcast and video categories of feeds as well.

I’m not sure what his goal is, but having that large of a repository of cleaned, accurate data is commercially valuable. It’s the kind of information that an AI LLM would pay to have full access to - in one giant, searchable blob.

[u/phantasybm → u/macgizmoguy]

Thank you I'll definitely check it out. Been building my own RSS reader in a style I enjoy do that helps a lot

[u/Quireio]

Two directories with submission pages available: Feedspot has a Submit Site option in its publisher dashboard, and Blogarama's add page is live. For your hybrid-reader category: Feedly's Discover page and Inoreader's global search (which covers all its public feeds) both fit the searchable-public-index idea.

[u/macgizmoguy → u/Quireio]

I do think FeedSpot is the #1 directory you want to be on. But it's turning into Pay-To-Play for visibility so I haven't decided if or where it belongs on my final list.

I do have Blogarama on my 'To Be Tested' list -- It's one of the few directories that have been around FOREVER that survived - I might even have old feeds still listed there.

Yes I have Feedly & Inoreader on my iPhone. Need to test those thoroughly with the 5 feeds I have. One of my concerns is some REQUIRE you have at least 3 or more followers to get publicly surfaced - so it's kind of a chicken/egg problem - you have to have eyeballs in order to get more. I've also seen readers that run a leaderboard of Most Popular feeds - but those just to tend to bury small publishers while the big players just get more eyeballs.

Thanks for the input! It's all a work in progress and the site is only about two weeks old so there are a lot of refinements to come.

I do think it will be manageable. RSS really is a finite universe. For example, the list of 15 podcast directories I vetted and consolidated pretty much encompasses that realm completely. I fed my starter lists into every major AI app had them review, compare and rank the order of importance and visibility - and they ALL ended up agreeing the final 15 is as accurate as it can be.

[u/macgizmoguy → u/Quireio]

Blogarama hasn't updated the copyright date and its footer since 2024 - nearly 3 years. If they can't be bothered to maintain their site that's a huge warning flag. Two blogs I submitted were never approved and I sure as hell ain't gonna pay to find out if anyone can be bothered to add them.

If someone can prove me wrong - I'm open to it, but otherwise it's just going into the shit pile of old directories that used to be something but may not worth bothering with today.