Categories: Social Media

How to generate RSS feeds for a Pinterest user & specific Pinterest Boards

Yes this article is about Pinterest but no, we’re not going to talk about the site’s astonishing rise or its revolutionary design features.  Instead we’re going to talk about something old school, RSS.

As you might know we love RSS but over the past year fewer and fewer sites are including RSS as a service for their users.  In 2011 Twitter removed its RSS options from the site, although, as we’ve shown, it is still possible to generate RSS feeds for user profiles, Twitter lists, and searches.  And last year Google+ launched without any native RSS support.

So what of Pinterest’s RSS support?  Pinterest does offer a general RSS option but if you want specific RSS feeds you need to do a little work.

Pinterest Fire Hose RSS
The site does provide an RSS option for user profiles; this feed combines all the latest pins a user has created regardless of which board they are in.  To generate this RSS simply click on the user’s profile and select the RSS icon on the left of the page.  Another way to do this is to add feed.rss to the end of the user’s profile; for example, if you want to see the latest pins by Felicia Day your RSS URL would look like this http://pinterest.com/feliciaday/feed.rss.

Pinterest Board RSS
Following a specific board created by a user via RSS is less obvious.  If you visit a user’s Pinterest Board you’ll see that there are no links to subscribe to that board’s RSS feed.  But you can still generate a feed for it.

The RSS feed will show you the last 20 or so pins created in that board rather than the full contents.   You won’t be able to see the comments for pin but your feed will be updated when new items are added.

As for Pinterest search, it doesn’t look like there is a way to generate an RSS feed just yet.

Archive your Pinterest RSS
If you want to archive your Pinterest RSS feeds you can do so using Google Reader.  Using the RSS links above Google’s RSS application will allow you to store a Pinterest user’s, or their Board’s, pins – including pins they might have deleted from their account.

Ajit Jain

Ajit Jain is marketing and sales head at Octal Info Solution, a leading iPhone app development company and offering platform to hire Android app developers for your own app development project. He is available to connect on Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

View Comments

    •  @BrianShaffer It is kind of possible to create an RSS feed for Pinterest search - you have to use Google Alerts though, so the feed will update when Google indexes new Pinterest content rather than in realtime when new content is published on Pinterest.
       
      Let's say you want to create an RSS feed for pins that mention ireland you would have to go to alerts.google.com and search for;
       
      ireland site:pinterest.com/
       
      then follow the options to create an RSS or email alert. I can do a tutorial on this for the site, if you like

    •  @BrianShaffer It is kind of possible to create an RSS feed for Pinterest search - you have to use Google Alerts though, so the feed will update when Google indexes new Pinterest content rather than in realtime when new content is published on Pinterest.
       
      Let's say you want to create an RSS feed for pins that mention ireland you would have to go to alerts.google.com and search for;
       
      ireland site:pinterest.com/
       
      then follow the options to create an RSS or email alert. I can do a tutorial on this for the site, if you like

    •  @BrianShaffer It is kind of possible to create an RSS feed for Pinterest search - you have to use Google Alerts though, so the feed will update when Google indexes new Pinterest content rather than in realtime when new content is published on Pinterest.
       
      Let's say you want to create an RSS feed for pins that mention ireland you would have to go to alerts.google.com and search for;
       
      ireland site:pinterest.com/
       
      then follow the options to create an RSS or email alert. I can do a tutorial on this for the site, if you like

    •  @BrianShaffer It is kind of possible to create an RSS feed for Pinterest search - you have to use Google Alerts though, so the feed will update when Google indexes new Pinterest content rather than in realtime when new content is published on Pinterest.
       
      Let's say you want to create an RSS feed for pins that mention ireland you would have to go to alerts.google.com and search for;
       
      ireland site:pinterest.com/
       
      then follow the options to create an RSS or email alert. I can do a tutorial on this for the site, if you like

    •  @BrianShaffer It is kind of possible to create an RSS feed for Pinterest search - you have to use Google Alerts though, so the feed will update when Google indexes new Pinterest content rather than in realtime when new content is published on Pinterest.
       
      Let's say you want to create an RSS feed for pins that mention ireland you would have to go to alerts.google.com and search for;
       
      ireland site:pinterest.com/
       
      then follow the options to create an RSS or email alert. I can do a tutorial on this for the site, if you like

      •  @pdscott That´s exactly what I was looking for.
        Thought there would be a syntax for these rss feeds (involving tags or something like that and similar to feeds for users or boards) but using alerts soundsOK too.
        By the way, do this kind of alerts work properly? I´m not a thoroughly devoted admirer of its results

        •  @bixerdo I wouldn't depend on Google Alerts as a replacement for a native site's RSS but it is useful in cases where sites don't provide feeds.  
           
          In my experience it works best on sites that are frequently visited (e.g Google Plus)

          • Might be the wrong kind of woman. If you like bike riding and physical activity, find a woman who appreciates the kind of guy you are. From your description, I wo;2ln&#8d17ut be very turned on by her. Sounds a bit stuck up. It’s not just about what she wants.

    •  @BrianShaffer It is kind of possible to create an RSS feed for Pinterest search - you have to use Google Alerts though, so the feed will update when Google indexes new Pinterest content rather than in realtime when new content is published on Pinterest.
       
      Let's say you want to create an RSS feed for pins that mention ireland you would have to go to alerts.google.com and search for;
       
      ireland site:pinterest.com/
       
      then follow the options to create an RSS or email alert. I can do a tutorial on this for the site, if you like

      •  @pdscott That´s exactly what I was looking for.
        Thought there would be a syntax for these rss feeds (involving tags or something like that and similar to feeds for users or boards) but using alerts soundsOK too.
        By the way, do this kind of alerts work properly? I´m not a thoroughly devoted admirer of its results

        •  @bixerdo I wouldn't depend on Google Alerts as a replacement for a native site's RSS but it is useful in cases where sites don't provide feeds.  
           
          In my experience it works best on sites that are frequently visited (e.g Google Plus)

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