47-feed curated catalog
News, World, Tech, Business, Science — toggle any feed on with one click.
WordPress Plugin
TheGridIndex RSS Importer.
Pulls headlines from external RSS feeds into WordPress as posts. Designed to pair with The Grid Index theme but works as a standalone importer with any theme.
About the name
"TheGridIndex" is a coined product name owned by Fifth Avenue Photographic (the plugin author) and is also the name of a companion WordPress theme by the same author. The plugin is not affiliated with any unrelated project, dataset, or service that happens to share the words "grid" or "index" in its name. Use of the companion theme is optional — the plugin works as a standalone importer with any theme.
Features
Everything the importer can do.
Twelve first-class features built for real editorial newsrooms — not a generic feed reader.
Custom feeds
Paste any RSS URL on the Feeds tab to ingest publishers not in the catalog.
Per-feed check intervals
Choose 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, or hourly schedules independently for each feed.
Configurable post status
Imported posts can publish, draft, or go to pending — your editorial workflow stays yours.
Granular categories
Feeds map to News, World, Tech, Business, Science alongside a catch-all RSS category.
Featured image extraction
Pulled from enclosures, media:thumbnail, media:content, or the first inline content image.
Minimum image width filter
Skip tiny tracking pixels and thumbnails so only meaningful imagery gets attached.
Persistent GUID dedupe
A ledger table re-uses GUIDs across runs — duplicates never come back, even after deletion.
Duplicate detector
Bulk merge tool surfaces and resolves duplicate posts that slipped through other workflows.
Feed health monitoring
Flags feeds that fetch successfully but import nothing — silent failures stop being silent.
Embedded knowledge base
15 FAQ entries shipped inside the plugin so help is one click away from the admin screen.
Source attribution meta
Per-post meta fields expose the original publisher so themes can render proper attribution.
Theme Integration
Even better with The Grid Index.
The plugin works with any WordPress theme. But when The Grid Index theme is active, imported posts automatically display source attribution and a "Read at Source" call to action — the same editorial signal as the live newsroom demo.
See the theme →
✓
Source attribution chip in the article hero
✓
"Read at [Source]" CTA button below the hero
✓
"Hide comments on imported RSS posts" Theme Option toggle
External Services
Transparent about what's sent.
This plugin is an RSS feed importer. To do its job, it must connect to external (third-party) RSS feed URLs that you choose to enable. No feed is fetched until you explicitly enable it — either by toggling a feed on from the Catalog tab or by pasting a custom RSS URL on the Feeds tab. If you enable no feeds, the plugin makes no outbound requests.
What is sent
- The feed URL you enabled (target of the request)
- A standard browser-style User-Agent header
- Standard HTTP Accept and Accept-Encoding headers from WordPress
- Your server's outbound IP address (visible in publisher access logs)
What is not sent
- No personal data about your site visitors
- No analytics or telemetry
- No user-identifying information
- No phone-home to the plugin author or any author-controlled service
Outbound caching
- Successful and failed fetches cached locally via WordPress transients
- SimplePie transient cache reduces redundant requests
- No fetched content leaves your server
- Custom feeds you paste in are fetched on the same schedule
Curated Catalog
47 publishers, six categories.
Each publisher operates independently of this plugin. Use of each feed is governed by that publisher's own terms of service and privacy policy — found via the footer links on each publisher's home page.
News
17
The New York TimesBBCThe Guardian
NPRAl JazeeraGoogle News
USA TodayThe Washington PostABC News (US)
CBS NewsPoliticoNBC News
The HillProPublicaTime
BloombergLA Times
Tech
9
TechCrunchThe VergeArs Technica
WiredEngadgetHacker News
9to5MacMIT Technology ReviewZDNet
Business
7
Financial TimesHarvard Business ReviewFast Company
ForbesWall Street JournalMarketWatch
CNBC
Science
2
Science DailyNASA
World
4
Deutsche WelleFrance 24
CBC News (Canada)ABC News (Australia)
AI / Vendor
3
OpenAIGoogle AI BlogHugging Face
Starter feeds — not in the curated 47-feed catalog.
Listing does not imply endorsement or affiliation. If a publisher you want to use is not in the catalog, you can add their RSS URL manually via the Feeds tab.
Installation
Five steps to a live feed.
From upload to first import — under five minutes.
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1
Upload the plugin to
/wp-content/plugins/thegridindex-rss-importer/or install via the WordPress plugin uploader. -
2
Activate the plugin via the Plugins menu in WordPress admin.
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3
Open the admin page under Grid Index → Grid RSS (when the Grid Index theme is active) or Settings → Grid RSS (when any other theme is active).
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4
Enable feeds. Toggle on feeds from the Catalog tab, or paste custom RSS URLs on the Feeds tab.
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5
Run it. Click "Import Now" for an immediate fetch, or wait for the next cron tick to bring stories in automatically.
FAQ
Common questions.
Will the plugin keep my data if I uninstall it? +
Not by default. Uninstalling removes the feed list, settings, and dedupe history. Your already-imported posts stay — those are your content. To preserve plugin data across delete-and-reinstall, check "Keep my data if I uninstall this plugin" on the Settings tab BEFORE uninstalling.
Why are some feeds showing red status dots? +
Red means the most recent fetch returned an error. Hover the dot for the error message, or check Diagnostics → Last import log. Failed feeds are backed off for 10 minutes before being retried.
Why is a feed green but importing nothing? +
Green means the HTTP fetch succeeded but the feed may be returning empty or stale data — typically because the publisher deprecated their RSS without taking the URL offline. The "Feed health check" card on the Diagnostics tab flags feeds with this pattern.
How does deduplication work? +
Each imported item's GUID is hashed and recorded in both postmeta and a persistent ledger table. The ledger survives post deletion, so trashed or permanently-deleted posts are not re-imported on the next fetch.
Does the plugin require The Grid Index theme? +
No. It works as a standalone importer with any WordPress theme. Pairing with The Grid Index theme adds source-attribution display and a "Read at Source" CTA — but is entirely optional.
Can I add a feed not in the catalog? +
Yes. Feeds tab → "+ Add Feed" → paste the RSS URL. The form auto-saves about 800ms after you stop typing.
Ready to install?
Grab the latest release from WordPress.org, or get hands-on setup help from the team that built it.