What is Meta-ExternalAgent?

Meta-ExternalAgent is a web crawler operated by Meta (formerly Facebook) designed to collect and index web content for training their artificial intelligence models and building their independent search capabilities.

This specialized crawler identifies itself in server logs with the user agent string meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler). Meta-ExternalAgent functions as part of Meta's AI infrastructure, systematically visiting websites to gather information that helps improve their language models and AI-powered features across their platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The crawler operates without executing JavaScript or processing CSS, focusing instead on efficiently extracting raw HTML content. It typically demonstrates aggressive crawling patterns with high request volumes compared to traditional search engine crawlers, reflecting its dual purpose of both training data acquisition and search index development.

Why is Meta-ExternalAgent crawling my site?

Meta-ExternalAgent visits websites to collect diverse content that can be used for training Meta's AI systems and enhancing their search capabilities. The crawler typically prioritizes websites with high information density, frequently updated content, and well-structured data formats that are compatible with language model training. Sites containing specialized knowledge, technical content, or multilingual resources are particularly valuable to Meta's AI development efforts. The frequency of visits varies based on your site's content value to Meta's systems, with some high-priority domains receiving hundreds of requests daily. Your site may experience more crawling if it contains rich textual information, structured data, or frequently updated content that Meta finds valuable for improving their AI models or search index.

What is the purpose of Meta-ExternalAgent?

Meta-ExternalAgent serves two primary purposes within Meta's technology ecosystem. First, it collects training data for Meta's large language models (LLMs) like LLaMA, helping to build and improve AI systems that power features across Meta's platforms. Second, it contributes to Meta's development of an independent search infrastructure, reducing their reliance on third-party search engines.

This crawler is part of Meta's strategy to create more self-sufficient AI systems that can provide real-time information and contextual understanding across their products. For website owners, the crawler's activities don't directly provide value in the same way that traditional search engine crawlers might drive traffic. Instead, Meta-ExternalAgent's crawling primarily benefits Meta's AI development and search capabilities, with any benefit to website owners being indirect through potential inclusion in AI-generated responses or search results within Meta's ecosystem.

How do I block Meta-ExternalAgent?

Meta-ExternalAgent is designed to respect standard robots.txt directives, giving website administrators control over how it accesses their content. To block this crawler from your entire site, add the following to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
Disallow: /

If you want to block access to specific sections while allowing access to others, you can use more targeted directives:

User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /members/
Allow: /public/

While Meta states that their crawler respects robots.txt rules, some website administrators have reported inconsistent compliance. If you experience continued crawling despite robots.txt directives, you may need to implement additional measures such as user-agent filtering at the server level or IP blocking.

Blocking Meta-ExternalAgent will prevent your content from being included in Meta's AI training data and search index. This means your content may not appear in AI-generated responses across Meta's platforms or in their search results. However, blocking may help conserve server resources if you're experiencing high volumes of requests from this crawler. Meta does not currently offer alternative opt-out mechanisms beyond robots.txt for controlling how your content is used in their AI systems.

Meta-ExternalAgent