Feedbin feed reader fetcher
Feedbin is a hosted RSS/Atom feed reader that polls feeds on behalf of its subscribers so they can read new items. It fetches your feed URLs to detect updates, not your pages for search ranking. Its activity appears in logs as repeated feed fetches from Feedbin infrastructure, with a self-identifying client.
What this means
Feedbin is a subscription feed reader: people subscribe to RSS/Atom feeds, and Feedbin polls those feeds so subscribers see new articles in one place. To do that, Feedbin fetches your feed URLs on a schedule.
This is feed reading, not search indexing. Feedbin reads your feed to surface new items to readers; it does not crawl your pages to rank them.
How it identifies itself
Feedbin fetches feeds from its own infrastructure with a self-identifying client and often reports how many subscribers a feed has in its user-agent — a common convention among feed readers. Match on the documented identity where available rather than an exact version.
Because exact tokens and ranges are not exhaustively published and may change, this entry is marked partially verified; the feed-polling behaviour and Feedbin client are the reliable signals.
- Purpose: hosted RSS/Atom feed reading
- Self-identifying client, often reports subscriber count
- Fetches feed URLs, not pages for ranking
How it appears in analytics and logs
A Feedbin request is a feed poll to fetch new items for reader subscribers. It is feed-reader automation hitting your feed URLs, not a content crawl or human audience.
Diagnostic use case
Recognise feed-reader fetches from Feedbin in logs, separate them from search crawling and page indexing, and read them as subscriber feed activity.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies feed-reader fetches server-side as bot traffic and shows which feed URLs are polled, so feed-reading does not inflate human analytics.
Common mistakes
- Treating feed-reader polling as search indexing.
- Counting feed fetches as human page views.
- Blocking feed readers and losing subscriber reach.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses the request user-agent and feed context only. No visitor identity is involved. WebmasterID records the fetch as a bot event, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- Superfeedr feed fetcher
Superfeedr is a feed-handling service that polls and processes RSS/Atom feeds and pushes updates to subscribers, historically supporting real-time feed delivery via PubSubHubbub/WebSub. It fetches your feed URLs to detect new items, not your pages for search ranking. Its activity appears in logs as repeated feed fetches from Superfeedr infrastructure.
- Feedfetcher-Google — feed fetcher
Feedfetcher-Google is the user agent Google uses to fetch RSS and Atom feeds for Google products. Google documents that Feedfetcher is not used for indexing, and that because feed fetches are user-requested subscriptions, it is handled differently from indexing crawlers.
- Monitoring bots vs search crawlers
Monitoring bots (uptime and performance checkers such as Pingdom and UptimeRobot) fetch your pages on a schedule to confirm availability, not to index them. They differ from search crawlers, which build a search index, and from SEO crawlers, which gather competitive data. Telling them apart keeps synthetic checks out of human analytics.
- Bot intelligence
Deterministic categorisation of feed fetchers and automation.
Sources and verification notes
- FeedbinHosted RSS/Atom feed reader; exact fetcher token and ranges not exhaustively published.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.