Bot intelligence record
WhatsApp is a link preview bot used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews; it appears in server logs as `WhatsApp`.
User-Agent Pattern
WhatsAppWhatsApp
User-agent strings are identification signals, not proof of identity. Confirm important allow, block, or rate-limit decisions with logs, DNS or IP evidence, request behavior, or operator documentation when available.
Robots.txt Snippet
Click snippet to copyUser-agent: WhatsApp
Disallow: /Click the snippet to copy it, or highlight the text manually.
Handling Guidance
DependsThis bot is usually safe to allow when the request source is verified and the traffic matches your site policy.
WhatsApp is used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews, and page metadata fetching.
Record Details
Structured data- Operator
- Family
- Type
- Preview
- Purpose
- Preview
- Identity type
- Official Documented
- Confidence
- High
- Last verified
- 2026-06-22
- Last checked
- 2026-06-22
- Source type
- Official
- Verification
- Verify WhatsApp by matching `WhatsApp` to official operator documentation, then checking reverse DNS, IP ownership, request behavior, and crawl consistency.
- Spoofing risk
- WhatsApp has medium spoofing risk because the user-agent can be copied, even when the bot has strong source or documentation support.
Notes
- WhatsApp is a link preview bot used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews, and page metadata fetching.
- Its primary user-agent pattern is
WhatsApp; related patterns includeWhatsApp/2.0; WhatsApp link preview bot; WhatsApp crawler; a representative HTTP user-agent isWhatsApp/2.0. - WhatsApp is verified with High confidence. The identity type is Official Documented, and the evidence basis is official operator documentation.
- WhatsApp is marked as respecting robots.txt directives for crawler access control.
- WhatsApp can usually be allowed after confirming the source and monitoring request volume.
Evidence and Source
- 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.
- WhatsApp is used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews, and page metadata fetching.
- WhatsApp has medium spoofing risk because the user-agent can be copied, even when the bot has strong source or documentation support.
https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/business-messaging/whatsapp/link-previews
Monitor This Bot In Edge
Botcrawl EdgeUse Botcrawl Edge to see matching traffic, identify related datacenter activity, and create allow, block, rate-limit, or log rules across connected sites.