Google Reader Makes Feeds From Any Website

The Google Reader team has announced a new way to make RSS feeds. Sometimes you visit a site and there is no feed available. If you want to stay informed when updates are made to the site, there are a few tools that will provide you with an email or alert. You can now create feeds in Google Reader which will show updates to the pages you are interested in following.

If you manage your RSS feeds using Google Reader, adding a webpage feed alert is as simple as adding the webpage to the “add a subscription” option on the left menu. Once you add a webpage, Google will try to find a feed and if they are unsusccessful, you will be prompted to create an alert feed.

The result (a sample is displayed below) isn’t as pretty as a standard RSS feed but works if all you want is an alert when content on the desired page has changed. This could work very well for product pages or to follow price changes for products you are interested in. A few people have noted that this is a good way to keep tabs on your competition.

As a publisher, you can opt-out if you don’t want Google to create feeds using this new service.