Feedbin
Feedbin •
Since 2013
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is Feedbin?
Feedbin is a commercial RSS feed reader service that fetches and delivers feed content to its subscribers. The bot's user agent includes the feed ID and subscriber count, providing transparency to feed publishers about how many Feedbin users are subscribed to their feeds. Feedbin respects robots.txt directives and provides a clean, ad-free reading experience.
User Agent String
Feedbin feed-id:12345 - 1 subscriber
How to Control Feedbin
Block Completely
To prevent Feedbin from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Feedbin
User-agent: Feedbin
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Feedbin
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: Feedbin
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Feedbin
Verification Method:
Check user agent string for Feedbin identifier
Check user agent string for Feedbin identifier
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Feedbin in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Feedbin/i
Strict Pattern
/^Feedbin feed\-id\:12345 \- 1 subscriber$/
Flexible Pattern
/Feedbin[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Feedbin.*Feedbin/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Feedbin
function detect_feedbin() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Feedbin/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Feedbin detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Feedbin
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_feedbin():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Feedbin'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class FeedbinMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Feedbin
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Feedbin
function detectFeedbin(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Feedbin/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Feedbin detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Feedbin';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectFeedbin);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Feedbin
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Feedbin [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Feedbin [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Feedbin" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Feedbin/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Feedbin
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_feedbin {
default 0;
~*Feedbin 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_feedbin) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_feedbin) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_feedbin) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Optional | Evaluate based on bandwidth usage vs. benefits |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Selective | Allow for public docs, block for internal docs |
| Corporate Site | Limit | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: Feedbin
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: Feedbin
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Feedbin
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Feedbin
Robots.txt Name
Feedbin
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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