What is an auto-discovery link?

This screen is part of a Web Feed Reference section for the Web Feed Generator. Please ask us if you cannot find the answer to your question.

An auto-discovery link is a special type of HTML link that you put in the head section of your Web page. Some Web browsers will alert their users with a news feed icon when they find this type of link on a page, which may encourage them to subscribe to your feed. News feed search engines also use these links to locate new feeds when they index your site.

<link rel="alternate"
  href="http://www.metacentric.net/RSS?siteID=1&amp;url=/news/index.jsp"
  type="application/rss+xml"
  title="RSS news feed" />
      

See the finding feeds with auto-discovery guide on our screen shots page to see how these links work.

See also:

• What is a link element?