FAQ - Syndication

Feeds offer content from sites that update on a regular basis (such as blogs, news sites, or comics). Syndicated accounts on LiveJournal automatically update with a feed's latest content. You can add or remove syndicated accounts from your Friends list, while holders of accounts with Professional and Permanent package of service can also create new syndicated accounts.

All LiveJournal accounts have Atom 1.0, RSS 2.0, and other data feeds. These feeds show your recent public entries, friend relationships, and interests.

Syndicated accounts are not owned by anyone; they automatically collect content from the source feed. You cannot log into a syndicated account, nor can syndicated accounts be deleted or renamed. Other account types cannot be converted into syndicated accounts, and syndicated accounts cannot be converted into other account types.

However, a syndicated account's external feed URL can be changed by opening a support request in the Troubleshooting category, making sure to include the username of the feed on LiveJournal and the desired feed URL. Do not create a new syndicated account with the new feed URL as this will complicate making the change.

Out of many possible reasons why a syndicated account isn't updating correctly, the most common is an invalid RSS or Atom feed.

You must first take server-side action to block the content from being syndicated to a LiveJournal account. For instance, if the syndicated account on LiveJournal is using your site's RSS or Atom feed, you could either disable that feed or block LiveJournal's IP addresses (81.19.74.128/30) from accessing your server. Either will prevent your content from being syndicated onto LiveJournal.

When you view your RSS feed in your browser while logged into LiveJournal, you will see all your recent entries; someone who is not logged in or not on your Friends list cannot see any protected entries in the feed.

Users on your Friends list can either log into LiveJournal and use an RSS reader built in to their web browser (or that shares cookies with their web browser) to authenticate by providing their LiveJournal cookies, or they may use HTTP Digest Authentication by adding ?auth=digest to the end of the feed URL, then sending their LiveJournal username and password in the request for the feed. If the URL already contains a question mark, add &auth=digest instead.

Note: If you use HTTP Digest Authentication, your client must send the "qop=auth" parameter in the digest authentication header. If you are having trouble using digest authentication, please ensure that your client does this.

Reading Protected Entries with Other Readers

Only the methods listed above are supported by LiveJournal for viewing your protected entries via RSS or Atom. LiveJournal does not support third-party RSS readers (such as Google Reader or Netvibes) unless these readers can authenticate via one of the methods provided above. Unless the third-party service supports authentication and you provide it with your LiveJournal credentials, the service cannot retrieve protected entries.

Please note that we do not recommend you give your LiveJournal credentials to any third-party service.

General note: Any entry that is initially posted at a Public security level may be cached or stored by third-party RSS readers, search engines, or users until you edit the security level of the entry. Even after you have changed the security level of an entry, any caches or databases that were updated while the entry was Public may contain your entry. To ensure the privacy of your entries, please ensure that you initially post them at a protected (e.g. Friends Only or Private) security level. You may wish to view this FAQ regarding how to ensure all of your LiveJournal entries are initially posted protected; you can use this information to ensure that no unauthorized persons or services have access to your entries.