How can I create a "subscribe in Google Reader" link?

Okay, so I read through your earlier blog entry about how to change default page view in Google Reader and was struck by one thing: Your link on the bottom of the article to "subscribe to this blog in Google Reader". How did you do that?

Dave's Answer:

Glad you noticed! :-) Truth be told, I stole the core subscribe URL from the Official Google Reader Blog. It looks like this:

Right click (or control-click if you're on a Mac) and select "Copy Link" and you'll find that you just grabbed the following URL:

http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=http%3A//googlereader.blogspot.com/atom.xml

That's for the Google blog. I simply deduced that if I change the feedurl to my own (http://www.askdavetaylor.com/index.rdf) that I'd have a handy subscribe button, and I did.

Now, for the advanced topic, clicking on that link takes you to a page where you'll need to decide whether you want to subscribe through your Google Home Page or Google Reader:

That's nice, but what if you actually want to circumvent this intermediate page and have the link take them directly to Google Reader? Again, we can copy the URL and use that instead.

A quick "Copy Link" reveals that the URL underneath "Add to Google Reader" is:

http://www.google.com/ig/addtoreader?et=gEs490VY&source=ign_pLt&
feedurl=http://www.askdavetaylor.com/index.xml&feedtitle=Ask+Dave+Taylor!

What does this mean? That you can use this link as a URL just like any other, to create a true "add to Google Reader" button, like this:

<a href="http://www.google.com/ig/addtoreader?et=gEs490VY&source=ign_pLt&
feedurl=http://www.askdavetaylor.com/index.xml&feedtitle=Ask+Dave+Taylor!">
Really add to Google Reader</a>

And here's how it'd work: Really add to Google Reader.

Hope you find that helpful too!

Update: by now you might have realized that the second step, of trying to bypass the intermediate page, appears to be broken. I've queried the Google Reader folk for some tips, but in the meantime, stick with the basic link format.

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Categorized: Blogs and Blogging (Article 7371, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: google reader, rss feeds, rss subscriptions
Previous: How do I create a repeating monthly event in Google Calendar?
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Reader Comments To Date: 7

Alfonso said, on June 5, 2008 5:44 PM:

Great tip! By the way, on a Mac, that would be control-click to access the contextual menu that makes it possible to copy the link address. Option-click (on FF, at least) actually downloads the linked file.

Cheers!

Dave Taylor said, on June 5, 2008 5:52 PM:

You're exactly right, Alfonso. I just fixed it in the article above to help others be successful. Thanks!

JoshG said, on December 27, 2008 5:05 PM:

If anyone is looking for a way to add a rss feed directly to Google reader, and skip the step asking if you would like to add the feed to iGoogle or Google reader, you can use Firefox Greasemonkey script to do that for you.

It can be found at:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/10729

Kiran Gosavi said, on March 25, 2010 3:48 AM:

when any one clicks on the rss google subscribtion on my blog it takes nicely to the google reader but when the user is trying to subscribe through google reader the title for my blog is set as "Title unknown". Do u know the solution for this

Bob Breville said, on October 4, 2010 3:10 AM:

Thanks a lot. This was exactly what I was looking for to be able to change my about:config firefox setting. Really annoyed me to get the choice between google homepage and google reader, when all I wanted was to add the feed subscriptions to google reader. Thanks again.

Benjer McVeigh said, on February 4, 2012 8:10 PM:

Thanks, this is a huge help. I had a problem adding it in my blogger template, though. I got the error, "XML error message: The reference to entity "feedurl" must end with the ';' delimiter." Any insight?

Thomas said, on January 10, 2013 10:51 AM:

This article just saved my life!

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

How can I create a "subscribe in Google Reader" link?

Reader Comments To Date: 7

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

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