I’ve never been a huge fan of Bloglovin’. I never liked their interface and preferred Feedly instead. But now I don’t just dislike them, I’m pissed.
I guess the first major incident was when they made it so clicking on a post opened the post up in an iframe so they could maintain a Bloglovin’ bar across the screen. That was a bit ehhh, but okay, whatever.
Then they introduced a new “follow by email” feature and Stephanie from These Paper Sites wrote a great article about why you shouldn’t use their follow by email widget.
Now they’ve reached a new low.
Bloglovin’ is adding your full posts to their website and telling Google that THEIR VERSION is the original.
There are now two ways to access your post. One is through the iframe I mentioned before. That looks like this:
You can still see my website, navigate around, etc. I even get a page view for it.
But now there’s a second copy of your content fully on their site. It looks like this:
Given that it’s supposed to be an RSS reader, you might be wondering why this is such a huge deal. Two reasons:
1) They are claiming to be the original source of the content.
In the source code for that page, they’ve added a canonical URL designating that THEY are the original source of that content. So when Google sees your version, then sees Bloglovin’s version, and sees they’re the same content, Google will prioritize Bloglovin’ and possibly not even rank you at all. You might even get penalized for duplicate content.
If you want to learn more about canonical URLs, Yoast has a great guide.
2) They’ve added a comments section below your post.
Oh and if you click one of those share buttons, you share THEIR version—not yours. Here’s what the Tweet looks like, for example:
Review: Royally Roma by Teri Wilson https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/nose-graze-6924469/review-royally-roma-by-teri-wilson-5526627307 via @bloglovin
Their URL and their Twitter handle.
Bloglovin’ no longer looks like an RSS reader; it looks like its own blogging platform (but one that no one can opt-out of). As far as I’m concerned, they’re now flat out stealing everyone’s posts and making money from them (from YOU!).
It’s entirely possible that the canonical URLs are accidental, but adding a whole page for each post and a comments section is not.
I’m a big fan of sharing full RSS feeds in order to provide convenience. I also like reading full content in my reader. But I’m NOT a fan of it if the feed reader is going to claim my content as theirs and make it nearly impossible to get back to the original source.
Until we learn more, I’ve set up something that will hopefully force Bloglovin’ to receive my excerpts only, rather than the full post. I’m going to give them a chance to at least address this. But if they don’t remove that canonical URL I might take steps to block them completely.
Steps you can take
Deleting your Bloglovin’ account DOES NOT remove your blog or posts from their site. Delete your account if you want, but know that your posts will still be there and will continue to be added.
Here are three things you can do:
- Set your RSS feed to show excerpts only. In WordPress this is in Settings > Reading. Select “Summary”. Note this will affect all RSS readers – not just Bloglovin’. Here are instructions for Blogger.
- Create a new RSS feed for excerpts only (WPBeginner has some good instructions). Then redirect the Bloglovin’ user agent to this new RSS feed via your .htaccess file or nginx config. Here’s what you’d add in your
serverblock for nginx:if ( $http_user_agent ~* 'Bloglovin' ) { rewrite ^/feed/?$ https://yoursite.com/feed/excerpts/ redirect; } - Fully block Bloglovin’ from your site using .htaccess or your nginx config. If you use Apache/htaccess, Aisling has a guide you can use on her site. If you use nginx, this can be placed in your
serverblock:if ( $http_user_agent ~* 'Bloglovin' ) { return 403; }
Are you kidding? How can they even do that, Ashley, and what can I do to make sure I’m protected from that – other than the code stuff you mentioned at the end of your post… Should I contact them?
This is really scary stuff, because it’s important to me that my content is MINE, I spend so much time preparing stuff for my blog, it really pisses me off that they might be trying to steal views from me like that. AND claiming to be where my post was originally posted…
I just went to Bloglovin where I looked for your post, and when I clicked on it, it took me straight here, Ashley.
It’s a special URL, Lexxie. I think they’re rolling it out in stages or something so it may not always be accessible but you can find it by going to the URL directly. Here’s an example: https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/nose-graze-6924469/review-royally-roma-by-teri-wilson-5526627307
You can contact Bloglovin’ but they may not do anything about it. Their site specifically says that you can’t ask your content to be removed. You might be able to file a DMCA takedown notice. If not with them, then maybe with Google.
That’s really freaky!
Thank you for sharing this. How are they allowed to just take whole posts?! Ugh. I appreciate your detailed suggestions for taking care of the problem.
You could try emailing them with a copyright infringement complaint. But there’s always the chance they refuse to do something, which means you either have to give up or take them to court over it.
I’m not a lawyer and not a law expert, but I think you could technically sue them for copyright infringement.
They get the content through your RSS feed, which is a public code version of all the content you publish. RSS feeds are specifically designed so your site content can be read via code and put into an RSS reader (as one example). Bloglovin’ started out as an RSS reader, but they’ve gone way beyond that IMO.
So the assumption they’re operating under is that if you have a public RSS feed, you’re fine with them using it. But I don’t think the law works in their favour there. It’s still your copyrighted content and I’m pretty sure you could demand they remove it and sue them for infringement if they don’t.
This is an interesting read: http://jux.law/are-rss-feeds-copyrighted/ It sounds like the issue is the courts have not yet determined whether or not republishing an RSS feed is copyright infringement. So without a clear precedent, no one really knows.
What a bunch of jerks! What if you do not have access to the server, is there anything we can do?
Options include:
1. Set your feed to summary only, but this affects ALL services.
2. There’s probably a plugin to disable your RSS feed completely, but again, this affects all services. So if you use your RSS feed for anything else, it’ll stop working there.
3. You could file a copyright infringement complaint with Bloglovin’, but there’s no telling how they’d respond. I mentioned this just above in my reply to Brooke if you want to read that.
Are you wanting to redirect them or block them? I could do that for you.
Thanks for this info, Ashley! I never really use Bloglovin, but I provide that option on my blog for RSS readers. It also seems to be a popular RSS platform.
I have also seen that panel a LOT when I visit posts and I hate it. I also don’t like to see the second view, which is all white, so I will navigate away from bloglovin to go to the original URL because I love to look at the blog design when I’m reading a post. It’s an extra step but I prefer to see the original blog and comment from there. Since I don’t visit my bloglovin feed, I wonder how many comments I get from there… ?
I hate it too! I’ve often seen people tweeting posts using the Bloglovin’ URL (not sure if intentionally or not) and I always hate it. I’d rather they tweet out the post to the original. I’m far more likely to click it than a Bloglovin’ URL.
You know, I think if you share the post from bloglovin, it automatically adds the @ bloglovin at the end of the tweet? So, I think the others who share it via the bloglovin app, didn’t do it on purpose.. ?
Wow that’s insane! I really hope the canonical really is an error and not purposely done to drive more traffic their way!
This is completely crazy! There must be some laws about plagiarizing that make this blatant stealing of content illegal. Thanks for spreading awareness about this!
Thank you for this! I saw a huge fuss on Twitter about bloglovin but I didn’t really understand what was going on through it all, and your post clears EVERYTHING up. This is ridiculous, and wrong on so many levels. I’m definitely going to use the “steps you can take” you mentioned! Thank you for explaining!
Oh my god :/ I don’t know all this programming stuff and no one can do it for me -.- but setting RSS to summary is what I’ve wanted to do anyway. I’ll try and find it. Thank you!!
(P.S. Your bio. I also fell in love with a Brit. Shipped him to my country ;D)
Thank you for sharing this. I started using Bloglovin years ago as a feed, but had already been thinking about switching away from them. Now I’m definitely going to. And take some measures to try to protect my content. I never would have known about this otherwise!
Wow, this is so crazy. I’ve disliked Bloglovin for a long time, for various reasons, but this is just too much. Thanks for sharing the feed “fixes”. I’m not on Bloglovin anymore, I have an account but removed my blog by creating another blog, directing all followers (not active followers anymore anyway) there, and deleting the new “blog” (which had no post, just an install with a feed). But of course people can’t do this if they have active blogs with active followers on BL.
Ahh – I did find my original post from back in 2015 when I first discovered that bloglovin was stealing my content. So far, you can only see a truncated (titles only) there.
http://www.bookhounds.net/2015/04/bloglovin-why-this-service-is-a-disservice-to-bloggers-and-how-to-fix-it.html
Wow, you really jumped the gun on this one. You were definitely right!
So – I just checked and bloglovin is now importing full post and now puts a SUBSCRIBE page on my posts when you click though. NOT KOSHER – this is not an RSS feed service any longer.
I saw a couple of things about this on Twitter and was confused. This post really helped to explain it. What do they think they’re doing? Did they think we wouldn’t notice? This is absolutely ridiculous. I’m still holding out hope that it was mostly unintentional and they will fix it ASAP. Really, if they just had an option to delete your blog from their site it would fix the whole problem.
I’m kind of panicking… Yikes! I’ll definitely make my RSS feed excerpts and take down the option to follow my blog on there!
Thanks Ashley, just heard about this on twitter. This is a good get around so hopefully if enough people complain we can get somewhere. Unbelievable!
This is so sleazy! Unfortunately I have a free WordPress right now, so all I can do is switch to showing excerpt only, though in theory I like giving readers access to the full post. Thanks for sharing!
Jesus Christ! I’m so mad!! Thank you so much for letting us know! I use blogger and half my followers are through Bloglovin, no idea how to fix this. God. You can’t trust anyone these days, not even a damn sharing platform.
This is uber annoying. I don’t like BlogLovin’. I don’t find it friendly to look at and I hate that they use iframes. As soon as I notice I’m in one, I click away to remove the connection to BlogLovin’.
I’d consider moving to excerpt only, but I know I really like having the option to read everything in Feedly – I’d hate to force it on readers to have to visit my site to see the full content.
I’m going to have to think through this one – thanks for calling attention to it! Maybe BlogLovin’ will get enough heat that they backtrack…
Hi Ashley,
Can you block Bloglovin’ on my website? I’ve always posted excerpts etc but BL does not benefit me enough to “list” it on there. Plus I’d rather avoid this whole rigamarole.
This is just so… gross. It makes me feel violated that Bloglovin’ is stealing the content I worked so hard to create. Thanks so much for linking to Aisling’s guide to blocking Bloglovin’. If this is their idea of copyright ethics, I don’t want them coming anywhere near my content! I hope someone does sue them just to make a point.
Hi Ashley
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. You have our deepest apologies. We just became aware of the canonical URL issue this weekend, and it has already been fixed. It of course was not our intention to appear as the original source of the content, and we’re thankful to the community for having brought it up.
Please feel free to reach out should you have anymore questions and/or concerns (support@bloglovin.com)
Again, our deepest apologies.
Community Team at Bloglovin’
Hah! Bloglovin’s commented here and on Aisling’s site. I followed Aisling’s tutorial and when I came back to her post I saw their comment and immediately came back to your post to see if they’re also on here.
Good to see they’re recognizing it, but I think maybe they’ve realized they might be in too much hot water if they don’t.
Wow, this is crazy. I will see how Bloglovin handles this and then decide what I need to do.
Thanks for this. I actually really like(d) Bloglovin’ and use it as my only reader. Guess I need to find an alternative as well as initiate the fixes you mentioned. UGH!
Thanks again so much Ashley for this post. It’s the second time that you provide huge value to me: the first one was when you talked about your weight loss mindshift (how it was not about “loose x pound by then” but just thinking “I have the time to do it, I don’t need to set a deadline”) and now this. I actually read you through Feedly but click through to see the whole blog post so if you change to excerpt only, that’ll be fine with me!
Will keep following Bloglovin’s answer if you can provide an update later on on your take on this, that would really be useful.
I think us bloggers have to accept that the only platform we truly own is our own blog and email lists. Anything we post on Instagram, BlogLovin’ etc. for promotion is at the direction of another company and therefore, can’t be entirely trusted. While I’ve never focused on growing a BL following, I have used to personally keep up with blogs. But now that the feed is so bad I don’t even do that….
….and now after writing this comment, I’m starting to think why bother with BlogLovin’ at all and disconnect my blog, ha! Since self-hosting and managing own email subscribers are the only ways to truly manage and control our content…seems like ditching BL all-together might be the way to go. *sigh*
Anyway – great and thought provoking post! (Clearly!)
xoxo – Kelly
DreaminLace.com
I definitely agree that the only platform we own is our blog, but I think Bloglovin is different from Instagram/Facebook/etc. comparisons, because people often don’t post their own content on Bloglovin. Bloglovin takes your posts and puts them on their website even without your permission. As soon as anyone decides they want to follow your blog, they enter your blog URL, add it to the site, and unless you adjust your settings, every single one of your posts will now appear in full on Bloglovin. Whereas people can of course share your content on social media, but it’ll just be a link and maybe a short 10 word excerpt.
So I don’t think it’s quite the same comparison when it’s not necessarily the site owner doing the posting. With Bloglovin’s new pages, it’s more like every single blog post is directly copied onto Bloglovin’s servers, complete with a comment box and social share links that don’t even use *your* URL.
UGhhhhh such crap. It’s really not fair that they can do this.
It’s probably worth highlighting that the canonical tag issue wasn’t actually an issue because search engines would have to see the same tag on the original post on your blog to take notice of it. Otherwise anyone could nick other people’s content and just use the tag on their own site to claim it as their own work.
I guess my point is that they’re claiming they’ve listened to people to fix the “canonical issue” but it wasn’t an issue in the first place.
It might have been an issue if someone didn’t have a canonical URL on their site already (they’re added via SEO plugins, which not everyone uses). Or there’s always the risk that Google somehow picks up Bloglovin’s first, then it’s a fight for who’s canonical URL is actually accurate. People have already posted examples where the Bloglovin version of the post ranks higher on Google than the original.
You’d have to have Bloglovin’s URL within a canonical tag on your own site for Google to take notice though. I don’t think it matters if you have canonical tags on your own site or not.
Canonical tags to tell search engines which page to treat as the original only work across domains when each domain “agrees” which URL should be the original source – I.e when a company has duplicate content across domains, it could use an identical tag across domains to tell search engines which page to rank first.
The fact that Bloglovin are now publishing entire posts could be an issue though if they’re indexed by search engines. Like you say, Google may decide that Bloglovin’s page is the original.
I’m not on BL but if I was I’d remove any links from my site to Bloglovin and make sure my RSS feed had links back to the original post as a signal to Google that it’s the original source. I reckon that would reduce the chance of search engines ranking BL first – or at all.
I linked to your article on my website as well. I have a lot to think about and perhaps change this week now 🙁 Thanks for the information.
You can also use a frame buster.
Okay, so I use blogger because it is easy and I have no idea how to do all the technical stuff. I went to the link you had for blogger, but have no idea what it is telling me to do. 🙁
Luckily I came across your Post on Facebook! I already noticed about two weeks ago that after a post was deleted from a blog the post, including pictures, was still 100% alive on bloglovin, but disappeared on my rss feed app …. wow, mysterious (just kidding, bloglovin sucks!)
Thanks so much for this informative post Ashley! I’ll work on removing Bloglovin’ from my blog and deactivating my account over the weekend.
I just signed up for Feedly and so far I love it!
Wow! I haven’t been a fan of bloglovin for a long time, either. And now, I’m mad, too. Thanks so much for posting this, Ashley!
How can you stop them from stealing your posts
Thanks for a great post! I was looking into using them but will have a look at feedly instead!
Thank you so much for posting this! I absolutely hate the new feature where my entire post is shared on bloglovin. I can see the slight changes they are making, and even though they resolved that one issue about Bloglovin’ being the primary source of our posts, it still all seems very shady to me. I don’t trust it, but am so glad you posted this because I’ve been searching everywhere for something like this!
http://mylovelierdays.com
I didn’t know that! I always use bloglovin to read blogs, and I didn’t like the comments thing. But the email thing is something more. I’ll have to check out Feedly.
Ow – sorry I see now I commented on an old post!
But still I’m in dilemma! I don’t trust them anymore, but there are so many followers on there…
I wish all bloggers just would stop promoting and using bloglovin’.
Feedly is nice, but 100 blogs is not enough for me in the free account. I really don’t know what to do!
Thanks
I am quite a new blogger this time (last time was pre bloglovin) and I didn’t like it from the start (tricky with image’s showing ect and that banner). Good to know I am not alone and that it is possible to run a successful blog without them.’
Do you know the code to redirect Bloglovin to a new RSS feed for Squarespace?
Sorry but I don’t think it’s possible to do on Squarespace.
No, You shouldn’t leave bloglovin. Bloglovin is one of my decent traffic source till now. Yes we can say that they are stealing your full articles, but you can prevent them to copy all of your content. I will give you simple steps. This is only works for self-hosted wordpress.
1. Go to your wordpress admin dashboard >> settings >> reading >> For each article in a feed, show SUMMARY.
2. Download plugin: Send Images to RSS. Activate the plugin. Simply go to it’s simple setting. and now you are set.
And then your posts will only show a small portion of your article. and the end of your bloglovin post, there are link to your posts, something like: Continue reading this posts >>
Thanks so much! Just what I was looking for 🙂
Hi Ashley, thank you for sharing, I just created a Bloglovin account and I’m glad I read this, I wasn’t into bloglovin at all, I just created the account to see what it was all about, now I know it and I’m glad I didn’t even get to post anything there, Thank you Ashley!
So would I be correct in thinking that this issue has now been fixed and I do not need to remove my feed from Bloglovin??
The SEO issue has been fixed. They still include a comments section on their copy of your post.
Oh no, I just signed up to Bloglovin before I read your post. I see that you posted this in March. Is Bloglovin still stealing your posts? After your blog, did they change anything?
They’re still doing one part of this post: they are putting the full content of your RSS feed on its own page and its own comments section. But they are no longer claiming to be the original source with the piece of SEO code.
I personally still don’t like them installing their own comments system for your content on *their* site.
I closed down the account. We need to protect our content. Thanks for posting and sharing. Its invaluable information to us all.
Thank you! You saved me! I came so close to signing up with Bloglovin’. You said Feedly is a good alternative?
Hello Ashley!
In the same day I downloaded Bloglovin (last week) and I saw I couldn’t delete my blog, after reading your post, I asked them to remove and they did. I think is the only way. I tried lots codes. Hope that help.
This is the answer I get:
support@bloglovin.com
Hi there,
Sorry to hear you don’t wish to use our service! I’ve gone ahead and deleted your blog from our system.
Take care!
Micah
BLOGLOVIN’
250 Lafayette Street
4th Floor
New York, NY 10012
bloglovin.com
@bloglovin
I tried a lot, including blocking Blogloving in my .htacces but was not happy with the result (followers see an error message in Bloglovin).
Now I found the solution, for me at least, by using this plugin: Block Bloglovin Iframe. When someone reads one of my blogs on Bloglovin the page pops out of the iframe and redirects to my own website.
Only thing left is that I don’t like Bloglovin to show my photo’s in the userfeed as if they are theirs.
Hi thanks for this, although im still on WordPress.com and yet to go self hosted. Is there nothing I can do to prevent them posting the full post from there?
You can change your RSS feed to show excerpts only. This is in Settings > Reading > “for each article in feed..” in the WP-Admin panel.
Hi Ashley, Thank you for letting us know about this. I really do not want my website ranking to go down because of Bloglovin. If I knew that before, I would have never gone with them. I was trying to follow your directions and in the WP Beginner, there is a lady who said she had put in their code instructions and it wiped out her entire blog. I am afraid to go that route. I thought maybe just do the .htaccess file or nginx config. server block for nginx. However,
I had checked my hosting file manager and also my editor and cannot find or know where exactly to find the nginx or the .htaccess to input your code to block Bloglovin from getting my blog’s RSS feed and confusing google that my work is their own. Please help me. My blog’s domain is http://www.lifeproductsreviews.com Thank you and have a nice day.
Hi Ashley, I just signed up for Bloglovin and I hate it already, wishing I did the search earlier. I’m using wordpress.com premium plan. How can I protect my blog’s privacy and keep my name with it??
You can switch your RSS feed to show excerpts only (Settings > Reading), but there isn’t a way to block Bloglovin’ completely on WordPress.com, I’m afraid.
Dang, I just claimed my blog on Bloglovin’ and then found out about this.
That’s awful. I think I signed up for Bloglovin’ but then realised it’s just another social network which acts as a Gateway to real content so I didn’t bother. I’m glad I didn’t do anything to link my blog now. They’ve probably got something in their terms about the content though. Might be worth checking before doing anything.
there seems to be a BlogLovin “hello bar” that opens up at the top of posts (when you open up the full post though BlogLovin reader) but it seems to only happen with some blogs and not for others – is there some way to get around this? This is an example that shows the hello bar (and “tweet this” option that gives a BlogLovin url rather than your own posts urls):
“http://frame.bloglovin.com/?post=6187397475&blog=19070253&frame_type=search&search_term=nature”
But as mentioned other posts (from different blogs) do not have the Blog Lovin hello bar on the top when I click through. Thanks for your help with this – it’s a great post!
Dont you want more exposure? most people do it because bloglovin has already some traffic, and people can actively follow you and communicate with you through comments on your blog posts. I understand that the canonical issue does make a big difference to go for bloglovin or not, but to me bloglovin is trying to acquire a new audience.
I came across this post by accident. I was actually searching for reviews of their Activate feature for influencers.
Anyway, I’m glad I got to read this. Thanks for your advice. You know, I didn’t really understand what the reader setting in WordPress was for.
I’ve proceeded to complete the first step, until I figure out what other steps I might want to take.
I’m also going to try blocking iframes as one commenter suggested.
Thanks for this!
I immediately installed the wordpress.co-bloglovin redirect to original plug-in by Pipdig which works great; avoiding the iframe and the possibility that people will comment in the bloglovin comment section.
BUT that doesn’t work in the app so I still wil set the RSS feed to summerize (asap making make a custome RSS feed for bloglovin)
AND I make sure that I comment myself first in the bologlobin comment thing with this standerdized message (made it up myself and it fits neatly in the width of the frame – I’m a graphic designer; I care :-)):
Please COMMENT IN THE ORIGINAL POST to avoid two comment threads and to make sure you don’t miss out…
If many people do this maybe it’ll get common practice to avoid their comment section!
Good luck you all!
Wow, thank you so much for writing this! I was just about to sign up for Bloglovin’ and claim my blog but before I did that I figured I’d better google it and learn what I was getting in to. I don’t understand any of the code stuff that you recommended, but luckily my boyfriend is a programmer so I’ll ask him to implement all of it immediately. Thank you!
I have a person who follows me on Bloglovin’ and she leaves OBNOXIOUSLY LONG comments. She does not leave them on my blog because my comments are moderated. The problem is I can’t block her on Bloglovin’. I wonder if I switch my blog to private if it will still be visible on Bloglovin’. What a mess!
Thank you for your post – I also found this article written by bloglovin’ :
https://help.bloglovin.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005039788-Bloglovin-and-RSS
They are keen to point out that they’re not “stealing” traffic and that ALL READERS ARE DIRECTED TO YOUR BLOG.
Perhaps this is in response to issues raised by bloggers such as yourself – maybe they’ve cleaned up their act – do you have any thoughts on this possible development?
Many thanks in advance
I’ve just discovered that they’re doing this to me too, and I am furious. I’ve sent them an email demanding that they remove my content, but I doubt that they will, because presumably they are making money out of it. That is, out of my content. It is nonsense for them to say that they are directing people to the site – why would they go there if they’ve already read my book review on Bloglovin?
If ever a site was poorly named, Bloglovin is it. Clearly they don’t love bloggers or they wouldn’t exploit them…
Thanks for the suggestion re the RSS: I don’t care if it affects other RSS readers. People can always subscribe by email or they can go direct to my site. If they can’t be bothered, too bad.
OMG!! I used to use Bloglovin’ a lot back in 2015 so I was like, “New blog, maybe I should use bloglovin’ again?” But I also hadn’t heard of anyone really promoting theirs in a while. . . So I’m glad I stumbled on your post. I guess I’ll stick to somehow figuring out pinterest or twitter lol!