← AI Agent Directory
Meta-ExternalAgent
AI training crawlerMeta's crawler for AI training and product indexing.
What Meta-ExternalAgent does
Meta-ExternalAgent collects web content Meta uses to train its Llama models and index content for its AI products. It identifies itself clearly and documents its behavior on Meta's webmaster pages.
Fact sheet
- Operator
- Meta
- robots.txt token
- meta-externalagent
- Honors robots.txt
- Yes (documented)
- Executes JavaScript
- No — invisible to browser analytics
- Identity verifiable by IP
- No published ranges
- Official documentation
- Meta docs ↗
How it identifies itself
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler))
User-agent strings are free to fake — any scraper can claim to be Meta-ExternalAgent. With no published IP ranges, claims by this agent can't be cryptographically verified — treat lookalikes with suspicion.
Allow or block via robots.txt
# Block Meta-ExternalAgent User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: / # Or allow it explicitly User-agent: meta-externalagent Allow: /
Should you block Meta-ExternalAgent?
Same calculus as GPTBot/ClaudeBot: a training opt-out, not a traffic decision. Meta AI's user-facing fetches ride Meta-ExternalFetcher instead.
Is Meta-ExternalAgent reading your site?
Meta-ExternalAgentnever runs JavaScript, so GA4 can't see it. VisitorType's server-side detection can — with per-page counts.
Measure it free