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MetaAI search crawler

Meta-WebIndexer

Meta-WebIndexer is a Meta crawler for improving Meta AI search result quality and source linking.

Needed to be found and cited in Meta AI.

Get the robots.txt ruleMeta documentation
Is Meta-WebIndexer allowed on your site?3 Meta bots

Reads your live robots.txt and applies the same rules these crawlers use. Nothing is stored.

robots.txt token
Meta-WebIndexer
Follows robots.txt
Not documented
How to verify it
Not published
Seen on
Not measured
Last checked
11 June 2026

Should you block Meta-WebIndexer?

Not if you want to be found in Meta AI. Allowing it can help Meta AI cite and link to your content; blocking it can reduce Meta AI search visibility.

What blocking each Meta bot does
Meta botJobIf you block it
Meta-ExternalAgentTrainingBlocking it opts your site out of this direct Meta AI crawling path, but does not cover every Meta user-triggered fetcher.
Meta-WebIndexerThis pageSearchAllowing it can help Meta AI cite and link to your content; blocking it can reduce Meta AI search visibility.
Meta-ExternalFetcherUser fetchA hit usually represents an on-demand fetch for a specific URL rather than broad crawling.
facebookexternalhitOtherBlocking it can break rich link previews and Open Graph extraction in Meta surfaces.
meta-externaladsOtherBlocking it limits Meta’s crawling for those advertising and business uses. Meta documents separate crawlers for link previews, AI, and user-requested fetches.

About robots.txtMeta has not documented whether Meta-WebIndexer follows robots.txt, so a rule is a request, not a guarantee.

robots.txt
User-agent: Meta-WebIndexer
Disallow: /

Asks Meta-WebIndexer not to crawl any page. Other Meta bots are unaffected. Add it to the robots.txt file at the root of your site, above any wider rules.

Ignored robots.txt?

Allowing Meta-WebIndexer creates the possibility of retrieval. To find out whether Meta AI actually cites or recommends you, track your Meta AI mentions over time.

Also seen under Meta’s name, but not in its current documentation: FacebookBot. Rules naming them control no documented Meta crawler.

Spot it in your logs.

Match the name, then check where the request came from. Anyone can copy a user-agent.

User-agentsource
meta-webindexer

Version numbers change. Match the highlighted name, not the whole string.

  1. 1

    Match the name

    Search your server or CDN log for Meta-WebIndexer, case-insensitive. A match is a clue, not proof.

  2. 2

    Check the source

    Meta publishes no IP ranges, reverse DNS or signatures for Meta-WebIndexer in the sources here, so it cannot be verified. Treat matches as unconfirmed.

Serve the content in HTML

The cited operator material does not verify JavaScript rendering. Serve useful HTML before client-side JavaScript where possible.

Questions, answered.

Meta-WebIndexer is a Meta crawler for improving Meta AI search result quality and source linking.

Sources.

Officially documented. Operator facts and Trakkr’s measurements keep separate dates.

  1. [1]
    Meta crawler documentation

    Officially documented · checked 11 June 2026

    developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers/

First verified 11 June 2026. Last source check 11 June 2026.

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See which AI crawlers read your site.

Trakkr shows which bots, Meta-WebIndexer included, visit which pages each day, and whether the answers they feed mention you.

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