WhatsApp is a link preview bot used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews.
User-Agent
WhatsAppUser-agent strings are identity signals, not proof of identity. Use Edge to compare the user-agent with IP, datacenter, behavior, path, and request history.
Verification and Detection
Verification method: Verify WhatsApp by matching `WhatsApp` to official operator documentation, then checking reverse DNS, IP ownership, request behavior, and crawl consistency.
WhatsApp traffic is primarily detected by the `WhatsApp` user-agent pattern; related patterns include `WhatsApp/2.0; WhatsApp link preview bot; WhatsApp crawler`; a representative HTTP user-agent is `WhatsApp/2.0`. Compare source IPs, reverse DNS, request paths, and crawl cadence before trusting the traffic.
Handling Guidance
This bot is usually safe to allow when the request source is verified and the behavior matches your site policy.
WhatsApp is used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews, and page metadata fetching.
Record Details
- Aliases
- WhatsApp/2.0; WhatsApp Link Preview Bot; WhatsApp Crawler
- Type
- preview
- Operator
- Family
- Kind
- Preview
- Purpose
- Preview
- Identity
- Official Documented
- Detection confidence
- High
- Spoofing risk
- WhatsApp Has Medium Spoofing Risk Because The User Agent Can Be Copied, Even When The Bot Has Strong Source Or Documentation Support.
- Status
- Active
- Respects robots.txt
- Yes
- Last verified
- 2026 06 22
Robots.txt Snippet
User-agent: WhatsApp
Disallow: /Traffic Matching
Live IP verification, reverse DNS, ASN and datacenter correlation, request history, connected-domain matches, behavioral context, and rule creation are kept inside Botcrawl Edge.
Open full record in Edge