Knocklog

Meta-ExternalAgent

Meta's AI training crawler.

Operator
Meta
Type
AI training crawler
In the user agent
meta-externalagent
robots.txt token
meta-externalagent
Follows robots.txt
says it follows robots.txt
Official documentation
developers.facebook.com
Checked on
2026-11-04

What is Meta-ExternalAgent?

Meta-ExternalAgent is Meta's AI training crawler. It collects pages that may be used to train AI models. A visit does not answer anyone right now; it decides what future models know about you.

The operator's description: Crawls for training foundation AI models and product indexing. (developers.facebook.com)

How do I block or allow Meta-ExternalAgent?

With robots.txt, using the token meta-externalagent. Meta says it follows robots.txt. To block the whole site:

User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /

To allow it, use Allow instead of Disallow. Before blocking, weigh what it brings: blocking does not remove you from AI search, but future models will know less about you.

How do I see whether Meta-ExternalAgent visits my site?

In your server or CDN access logs, look for meta-externalagent in the user agent. Google Analytics does not show these visits: agents do not run its JavaScript.

Anyone can copy the name in a user agent, so counting log lines is not enough. Knocklog reads your site's traffic on any host, confirms who is who, and shows how often Meta-ExternalAgent came, which pages it read and what that brought you.

How do I know it is really Meta-ExternalAgent?

Meta does not publish a way to verify Meta-ExternalAgent. Any program can use that name, so Knocklog shows these visits as “unverified”, never as genuine.

Does Meta-ExternalAgent visit your site?

See in seconds how your site treats AI agents. Then connect your traffic to learn who really came.

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