Feedly
Feedly •
Since 2008
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Official Docs
What is Feedly?
Feedly bot crawls websites to fetch RSS feeds and content for millions of users who use Feedly as their news reader. As one of the most popular RSS readers after Google Reader's shutdown, Feedly serves professionals, researchers, and content enthusiasts who want to stay updated on specific topics. The bot respects standard RSS/Atom protocols and also discovers new feeds. The user agent often includes subscriber count, helping publishers understand their Feedly audience size. For content creators, Feedly represents a engaged audience actively seeking their content.
User Agent String
Feedly/1.0 (+https://feedly.com/fetcher.html; 1 subscriber)
How to Control Feedly
Block Completely
To prevent Feedly from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Feedly
User-agent: Feedly
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Feedly
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: Feedly
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Feedly
Verification Method:
Feedly identification and subscriber count in UA
Feedly identification and subscriber count in UA
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Feedly in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Feedly/i
Strict Pattern
/^Feedly/1\.0 \(\+https\://feedly\.com/fetcher\.html; 1 subscriber\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/Feedly[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Feedly.*Feedly/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Feedly
function detect_feedly() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Feedly/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Feedly 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Feedly
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_feedly():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Feedly'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class FeedlyMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Feedly
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Feedly
function detectFeedly(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Feedly/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Feedly detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Feedly';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectFeedly);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Feedly
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Feedly [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Feedly [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Feedly" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Feedly/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Feedly
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_feedly {
default 0;
~*Feedly 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_feedly) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_feedly) {
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_feedly) {
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: Feedly
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: Feedly
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Feedly
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Feedly
Robots.txt Name
Feedly
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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