Meta-ExternalAgent
Meta-ExternalAgent is a bot operated by Meta that collects pages used to train AI models. Meta-ExternalAgent is a web crawler used by Meta to download training data for its AI models and improve its products by indexing content directly. It honours robots.txt, and a request claiming to be Meta-ExternalAgent can be checked against the operator's announced ASN.
Also seen as meta-externalagent. Rules need to cover every token.
Meta-ExternalAgent at a glance
| User agent | Meta-ExternalAgentToken only. The operator has not published a full user-agent string, so match on the substring rather than an exact header. |
|---|---|
| Operator | Meta |
| Purpose | Training crawlers |
| Respects robots.txt | Yes, documentedsource |
| Verification method | Operator ASN check Meta does not publish a per-bot range file. The practical check is whether the source IP is announced by AS32934 (Facebook), which you can query from a routing registry. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers/ |
| Crawl pattern | Not published |
| Robots.txt tokens | Meta-ExternalAgentmeta-externalagent |
| Operator documentation | https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers/ |
Meta-ExternalAgent is a web crawler used by Meta to download training data for its AI models and improve its products by indexing content directly.
Allow or block Meta-ExternalAgent
Paste one of these into the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. Rules are per token, so a block on one crawler leaves every other bot untouched.
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /Blocks every path for this crawler only.
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: meta-externalagent
Allow: /Explicit allow. Useful when a wildcard rule above it would otherwise catch this crawler.
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: meta-externalagent
Allow: /
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /searchEdit the Disallow paths to match your own account, checkout and search URLs.
What blocking actually costs you
Blocking Meta-ExternalAgent keeps your pages out of the next training run. It does not remove anything already collected, and it has no effect on how the site ranks in ordinary search.
Block every crawler in the directory at onceIs that really Meta-ExternalAgent?
A user-agent header is a string the client chooses. Scrapers copy Meta-ExternalAgent precisely because site owners allow it. Meta does not publish a per-bot range file. The practical check is whether the source IP is announced by AS32934 (Facebook), which you can query from a routing registry.
Paste the IP address from your access log below. You will see whether it belongs to a hosting provider, a residential proxy pool or a Tor exit, plus the ASN that announces it, which is what tells you whether the claim holds up.
Other crawlers run by Meta
Related crawlers
Identify crawlers automatically instead of by hand
Agentscan checks a request against published crawler ranges, reverse DNS and hosting data, then returns a verdict your edge can act on. One call per request, no range files to keep up to date.