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In websites, most of the RSS feed icons are orange/red. For instance in Pro Webmasters also the RSS feed menu is orange i.e., in tag subscription. What's the reason for using like that?

Is there any procedure following along by the web developers to choose the color of the RSS feed menu?

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  • I think your making this more complicated than it is. RSS is associated with orange because that's the way it's always been. The rss icon is orange, and making the rss menu orange too helps people recognise it better.
    – user6901
    Jul 21, 2012 at 15:34
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    "menu" - do you mean icon?
    – MrWhite
    Jul 21, 2012 at 15:37
  • @w3d Yes the rss icon, but what's the reason for down vote?
    – Vijin Paulraj
    Jul 21, 2012 at 18:13
  • Not sure of the down vote. But I think the answer is simply convention. As with all conventions, however, they do have their origins and @deathlock's answer appears to cover that quite well.
    – MrWhite
    Jul 21, 2012 at 19:23

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I remember the icon was first used in Mozilla Firefox, and later adapted by Microsoft to be used in their Internet Explorer. Since then, it has became the web standard that the orange-colored icon symbolizes the RSS icon.

I don't think there's any specific reason to use the RSS icon in its orange color, as various designers (showcased through web design blogs) have made various alternatives in color and shape. However the orange color and rounded-square shape is easier to recognize as it has been used widely.

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    The Wikipedia article for RSS also includes a bit of history behind the icon and backs up what you have already said: "In Dec 2005, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team and Microsoft Outlook team announced on their blogs that they were adopting the feed icon first used in the Mozilla Firefox browser. In Feb 2006, Opera Software followed suit. This effectively made the orange square with white radio waves the industry standard for RSS and Atom feeds, replacing the large variety of icons and text that had been used previously to identify syndication data."
    – MrWhite
    Jul 21, 2012 at 19:29

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