Hot Articles
Hot articles are recent articles that other articles in your subscriptions link to. RSSMonster uses these links to highlight coverage attracting attention across your feeds. Hot status is specific to your account: it is not a global popularity score, a count of readers, or an AI prediction.
For example, you subscribe to a research publication and a news site. The news site publishes an article linking to a recent report from the publication. If both articles are stored in your account and meet the rules below, the linked report becomes Hot. The news article does not become Hot simply by linking to it.
How an article becomes Hot
During article processing, RSSMonster collects external HTTP and HTTPS links from the article’s HTML. Links to the source article’s own website are skipped, and repeated links to the same normalized URL within one article count only once. Filtered or duplicate articles do not contribute link observations.
When RSSMonster reconciles Hot status, a stored article qualifies if:
- It belongs to your account and is neither filtered nor a duplicate.
- Its publication date falls within the last 14 days.
- At least one link observation recorded within the last 14 days points to its URL, belongs to your account, and comes from a different feed.
Matching uses normalized URLs. Tracking parameters such as utm_source, URL fragments, and trailing slashes are removed, while meaningful query parameters are preserved. Reconciliation matches those normalized URLs exactly; similar headlines or article text are not enough.
The stored hotlinks value counts matching link observations, not distinct feeds. Several articles from one other feed can contribute several observations. The hotInd flag indicates whether that count is greater than zero. Separate feeds do not necessarily mean independent reporting, and Hot status is not a quality rating or a fact check.
Find Hot articles
Select Hot in the sidebar or the Show menu. You can narrow the collection to a category or feed. Articles also display a Hot label or flame indicator, depending on the reading layout.
Use Search for more specific selections:
| Search | Result |
|---|---|
hot:true | Hot articles in the active feed or category scope. |
hot:true unread:true | Hot articles you have not read. |
hot:false | Articles that are not currently Hot. |
Save a frequently used search as a Smart Folder.
Ranking bonus
Both Top Stories and Recommended add a flat +0.07 to an article’s score when hotInd is set. This is an additive bonus, not a seven-percent multiplier. More link observations do not increase the bonus, and the existing score caps still apply. The bonus does not change Quality, Newest, or Oldest ordering.
Other scoring signals still matter, so a Hot article is not guaranteed to rank above every non-Hot article. See Scoring and Ranking for the complete formulas.
Daily Briefing
Open Daily briefing → Tune your briefing and use Include Hot articles under Article selection. This preference is enabled by default.
- Enabled: Hot status is another way to qualify for the briefing, alongside stored interest and qualifying Event membership. A Hot article does not need either of those other signals when the two Show only options are off.
- Disabled: all Hot articles are excluded from the briefing, including those that also have stored interest or qualifying Event membership.
Hot articles still have to meet your saved period, unread-only setting, minimum distinct sources, and any interest-only or developing-only restriction. Existing visibility and score filters also apply. Enabling the switch does not bypass these filters or give every Hot article its own overview highlight; Event grouping and overview limits still apply.
Select Save changes to update the collection and overview. The preference also applies to the saved selection used for briefing emails. Reset to defaults turns it back on in the draft settings. See Daily Briefing for the other controls.
When Hot status changes
Hot status is recalculated after crawling and during expired-link cleanup. An article loses it when no qualifying links remain or its publication date ages outside the 14-day window. Publisher revisions replace their earlier outbound links, so removing a link can reduce the linked article’s count or clear its Hot status. These updates happen during reconciliation, not continuously as the clock advances.
If an expected article is missing, check that the linked article is stored in your account, the link came from an accepted article in another feed, and both the target publication date and link observation are recent enough. Links to the source article’s own website are skipped. Your active filters can also hide an article that is still Hot.