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.
Overview
| Operated By | Ask |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | No |
| Insights Last Updated | September 20, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
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.
Bloglines's User Agent
| User Agent | Bloglines/3.1 (http://www.bloglines.com) |
How To Block Bloglines With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to request that Bloglines not access your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to request the same of all fetchers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: Bloglines # https://knownagents.com/agents/bloglines
Disallow: /Insights for Bloglines
As of September 20, 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 Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by Bloglines.
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Does Bloglines Follow Robots.txt Rules?
No. Bloglines is not expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule only communicates your preference. Enforce the block with firewall or server rules, then use Agent Analytics to verify that its requests stop.
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 Tell if Bloglines Is Visiting My Website?
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.
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.