NewsBlur Feed Fetcher

Preview Bot
Allow

Generates link previews when your URLs are shared socially.

Recommended action: Allow access. Blocking breaks social sharing previews.

Category

Preview Bot

Primary use case

Social media link previews

Trust level

Review recommended

robots.txt

Unknown

What is NewsBlur Feed Fetcher?

Fetcher bot

What NewsBlur Feed Fetcher means for your site

Every visit from NewsBlur Feed Fetcher means someone shared your URL on a social platform. The bot fetches your page to generate the link preview card (title, image, description) that appears in the conversation or feed. These are valuable visibility signals that traditional analytics miss entirely. High preview bot activity indicates your content is being shared and discussed.

What should you do?

  • Allow NewsBlur Feed Fetcher, blocking breaks link previews
  • Ensure Open Graph meta tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) are set on key pages
  • Monitor share patterns to identify which content resonates
  • Use BotSights to track social shares that Google Analytics misses

See NewsBlur Feed Fetcher on your own site

BotSights tracks every NewsBlur Feed Fetcher visit in real time, including which pages it crawls, how often, and from where.

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How to identify NewsBlur Feed Fetcher

NewsBlur Feed Fetcher uses the user-agent "NewsBlur Feed Fetcher". It robots.txt compliance unconfirmed.

NewsBlur Feed Fetchernewsblur feed fetcher

How to block NewsBlur Feed Fetcher

Three robots.txt options below. Pick the one that matches your goal. Each snippet lists every known NewsBlur Feed Fetcher user-agent pattern so the rules apply regardless of which one the bot announces. Compliance with robots.txt is unconfirmed for NewsBlur Feed Fetcher, so verify with crawl logs after deploying.

Edit robots.txt with care

A single misplaced line can de-index your entire site. Common mistake: pasting User-agent: * followed by Disallow: / blocks every bot, not just NewsBlur Feed Fetcher, including Googlebot. Always paste the snippet between existing rules (not over them), keep the User-agent line scoped to NewsBlur Feed Fetcher's patterns, and verify with Google's robots.txt tester before deploying. If you are not sure, ask a developer first.

Option 1: Block all access

Tells NewsBlur Feed Fetcher not to crawl any URL on your site. Use this when you want the bot completely off your content.

User-agent: NewsBlur Feed Fetcher
User-agent: newsblur feed fetcher
Disallow: /

Option 2: Block specific paths only

Keep public content crawlable but exclude sensitive or non-public sections. Add one Disallow: line per path. Replace the example paths with your own.

User-agent: NewsBlur Feed Fetcher
User-agent: newsblur feed fetcher
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /checkout/

Option 3: Slow down with a crawl delay

Crawl-delay is a voluntary directive that asks the bot to wait the given number of seconds between requests. Useful when NewsBlur Feed Fetcher is hammering your origin and slowing the site down for real visitors, but you do not want to block it outright. The value is in seconds, so 10 means at most one request every ten seconds. Not all bots honour this directive (Googlebot ignores it; Bingbot, Yandex, and many AI crawlers do respect it).

User-agent: NewsBlur Feed Fetcher
User-agent: newsblur feed fetcher
Crawl-delay: 10

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a visit from NewsBlur Feed Fetcher mean my link was shared?

Yes. Each visit represents a share event on this platform. Someone sent your URL to another person or posted it publicly.

Should I block NewsBlur Feed Fetcher?

No. Blocking prevents link preview cards from appearing when your URLs are shared. This makes shared links less attractive and reduces clicks.

How can I improve my link preview?

Add Open Graph tags: og:title, og:description, og:image. These control what appears in the preview card on social platforms.

Detect social shares that analytics tools miss

Every visit from NewsBlur Feed Fetcher means someone shared your link. BotSights tracks these invisible shares so you know which content resonates.

  • See when your links are shared on social platforms
  • Track which pages get shared most
  • Discover social traffic your analytics can't see
Track social shares

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