FlipboardProxy

What is FlipboardProxy?

FlipboardProxy is a web crawler operated by Flipboard, Inc., the company behind the popular Flipboard social magazine app. It functions as a content aggregation bot that fetches, processes, and presents web content within the Flipboard application. This crawler identifies itself in server logs with a distinctive user agent string that typically follows this format: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.11; rv:49.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/49.0 (FlipboardProxy/1.2; +http://flipboard.com/browserproxy). The bot mimics browser behavior while clearly identifying its automated nature through the FlipboardProxy token and associated URL.

FlipboardProxy exhibits distinctive behavioral patterns, including clustered requests to the same resource within short timeframes. It often makes sequential requests first for HTML content, then for associated assets like images and stylesheets. The crawler runs on Amazon Web Services infrastructure, primarily from the US-East-1 region, which can help administrators identify legitimate Flipboard traffic.

Why is FlipboardProxy crawling my site?

FlipboardProxy visits websites primarily when Flipboard users have shown interest in your content. This could happen when users add your site to their Flipboard feeds, when your content is shared on social platforms that Flipboard monitors, or when your RSS feed is indexed by the service.

The crawler looks for article content, metadata (titles, descriptions), and media assets (particularly images) to generate rich previews within the Flipboard app. It may also process RSS feeds and follow links to individual articles. Visit frequency depends on your site's popularity among Flipboard users and content update frequency. Sites with active RSS feeds and frequent social sharing will see more regular visits.

What is the purpose of FlipboardProxy?

FlipboardProxy supports Flipboard's core service as a "social magazine" that aggregates content from various sources into a personalized reading experience. The crawler collects and processes web content to create optimized previews within the Flipboard app, allowing users to discover and engage with your content without initially visiting your full website.

When users find these previews interesting, they can tap through to view the complete article on your site. This can drive referral traffic, especially for publishers with engaging headlines and preview images. The service benefits readers by creating a unified reading experience across multiple content sources, while potentially expanding your audience reach through Flipboard's discovery mechanisms.

For website owners, Flipboard can serve as an additional traffic source and content distribution channel, particularly for media sites, blogs, and publishers with regularly updated content.

How do I block FlipboardProxy?

FlipboardProxy respects standard robots.txt directives, making this the simplest method to control its access to your site. To block the crawler completely, add the following to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: FlipboardProxy
Disallow: /

To block access to specific sections while allowing access to others:

User-agent: FlipboardProxy
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /members-only/
Allow: /

If you're experiencing excessive load from FlipboardProxy, implementing proper cache headers can help reduce redundant requests. Setting appropriate Cache-Control headers will instruct the crawler to respect your caching preferences and reduce server load.

Blocking FlipboardProxy means your content won't appear in Flipboard's app, potentially reducing visibility and referral traffic from Flipboard users. Before blocking completely, consider whether selective restrictions might better balance server load concerns with the potential audience benefits.

For more granular control, server-side user agent detection can be implemented to customize how your site responds to FlipboardProxy requests, such as serving simplified versions of pages or limiting the crawl rate.