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Crawler

What is Meta-ExternalAds?

Meta-ExternalAds is Meta's crawler for its ads and business products.

Other botsFollows robots.txtNo way to verify
Operator
Meta
Purpose
Other bots. Ads checks, SEO tools and research crawls. Not AI training or AI search.
robots.txt token
meta-externalads
Sample user agent
meta-externalads/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers)User agents change with versions. Match on the token, not the full string.
Follows robots.txt
Yes, according to Meta.
How to verify
Meta doesn't publish a way to verify it.
Sources
Meta documentation
Last reviewed

Allow or block Meta-ExternalAds

Block Meta-ExternalAds
User-agent: meta-externalads
Disallow: /

Asks Meta-ExternalAds not to crawl any page. Well-behaved crawlers stop; it does not stop anyone who ignores robots.txt.

Allow Meta-ExternalAds
User-agent: meta-externalads
Allow: /

Lets Meta-ExternalAds crawl everything. You only need this if a broader rule would otherwise block it.

Should you block it?

Meta-ExternalAds is not an AI training or AI search crawler. Block it only if you don't want Meta's product to read your pages.

Write a full policy with the AI Crawler Policy Generator

Meta-ExternalAds can't be verified

Meta doesn't publish IP ranges, DNS names or signatures for Meta-ExternalAds. The user agent is the only signal, and anyone can copy it, so treat a request that claims to be Meta-ExternalAds as unproven.

Questions about Meta-ExternalAds

Is Meta-ExternalAds safe to allow?

Meta-ExternalAds reads public pages; it does not log in or submit forms. Whether to allow it depends on whether you want Meta's product to use your pages.

How do I know a request is really Meta-ExternalAds?

You can't, from the request alone. Meta doesn't publish IP ranges, DNS names or signatures for it, so the user agent is the only signal, and anyone can copy that.

How often does Meta-ExternalAds visit?

It depends on your site; Meta doesn't publish a schedule. Referscope shows the real visits.

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