What is Bloglines?
Bloglines is an RSS feed reader and aggregation service operated by Ask Media Group that fetches and parses syndicated content from blogs and websites to display updates to its users. The bot is used to retrieve RSS feeds and web content to keep the feed reader service up to date with the latest posts from subscribed sources. You can set up Agent Analytics to see when Bloglines visits your website.
Category
| Example User Agent | Bloglines/3.1 (http://www.bloglines.com) |
| Operated By | Ask |
| Source | Official Website |
| Triggered By | Shared link |
| Used for AI Model Training | Not expected |
| Affects AI Chat & Search Visibility | Not directly |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | No |
Why Is Bloglines Visiting My Website?
Someone shared a link to your page. Bloglines fetched it to build a preview card, and each new share may trigger another request. A spike often means your content is circulating more widely.
Should I Block Bloglines?
Usually not. Blocking Bloglines may leave shared links without a title or image, making them less inviting to click. If it begins fetching at unexpected volume, try rate limiting before blocking it outright. For context, 7% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for Bloglines.
Insights for Bloglines
As of November 4, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Compliance
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Bloglines Traffic
Frequently Asked Questions
What Traffic Patterns Should I Expect From Bloglines?
Bloglines usually makes a single request within seconds of a URL being shared, without crawling further. Traffic rises and falls with sharing activity, so a widely circulated link can produce a sharp burst of fetches.
Does Bloglines Follow Robots.txt Rules?
No. Bloglines is not expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule only communicates your preference. Use Bad Bot Blocking to reject its requests, then use Agent Analytics to verify that they stop.
Is Bloglines Used for AI Model Training?
Not ordinarily. Bloglines is not categorized as an AI training scraper or data provider, so AI model training is not its expected purpose.
Does Blocking Bloglines Affect AI Search or Citations?
Not directly. Bloglines's expected purpose is not to supply an AI search index or retrieve pages for AI-generated answers.
Does Bloglines Access Private Content?
No. Bloglines has no credentials and should access only the public URL and assets needed for a preview. It does not continue through the rest of your site.
How Can I Verify a Request From Bloglines?
Agent Analytics tracks Bloglines visits in real time. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "Bloglines". Look for a page and its preview assets being requested without follow-up navigation. Because Bloglines does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.
How Is Bloglines Different From Other Ask Agents?
Ask operates separate agents for different purposes, so each agent should be evaluated and controlled independently.
- Teoma: Teoma is a search engine crawler operated by Ask.