Overview
Meta-ExternalAgent is an AI training crawler from Meta used for AI model training, dataset discovery, and collection of public web content for model-development pipelines.
Its primary user-agent pattern is meta-externalagent; related patterns include Meta AI crawler; a representative HTTP user-agent is meta-externalagent/1.1 meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler).
Meta-ExternalAgent is verified with High confidence. The identity type is Verified Bot, and the evidence basis is official operator documentation.
Meta-ExternalAgent is marked as respecting robots.txt directives for crawler access control.
Meta-ExternalAgent should be reviewed against site policy, source evidence, crawl rate, and requested paths before a permanent allow or block rule is created.
Identity
- User-Agent Pattern
-
meta-externalagent - Aliases
- Meta AI crawler
- HTTP Agent Examples
-
meta-externalagent/1.1 meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler) - Robots Token
- meta-externalagent
- Identity Type
- Verified bot
- Evidence Method
- Verify Meta-ExternalAgent by matching `meta-externalagent` to Meta evidence, then checking reverse DNS, source-network ownership, signed request data, or published crawler documentation when available.
Classification
- Type
- Search
- Kind
- Crawler
- Family
- Meta
- Operator
- Meta
- Company
- Meta
- Purpose
- AI training
Behavior and handling
- Common Use
- Meta-ExternalAgent is used for AI model training, dataset discovery, and collection of public web content for model-development pipelines.
- Detection Notes
- Meta-ExternalAgent traffic is primarily detected by the `meta-externalagent` user-agent pattern; related patterns include `Meta AI crawler`; a representative HTTP user-agent is `meta-externalagent/1.1 meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)`. Compare source IPs, reverse DNS, request paths, and crawl cadence with Meta infrastructure before trusting the traffic.
- Respects robots.txt
- Yes
- Spoofing Risk
- Meta-ExternalAgent has medium spoofing risk because the user-agent can be copied, even when the bot has strong source or documentation support.
- Risk
- Neutral
- Recommended Handling
- Depends
Rules and controls
- Robots.txt Snippet
-
User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: /