Meta-ExternalFetcher
Meta’s fetcher used to retrieve pages on demand for AI features across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta AI.
What Meta-ExternalFetcher is for
Fetches a page in real time to answer a question someone just asked.
Typically fetches a specific page to support a Meta AI answer or link feature rather than crawling your whole site.
Crawler guide
Evergreen identity, source, and robots.txt handling guidance.
Allow or block Meta-ExternalFetcher
Partially honours robots.txt. Add one of these to your robots.txt.
User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher Disallow: /
User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher Allow: /
Other AI crawlers
Every bot Trakkr tracks is a doorway.
AmazonbotOther · AmazonCommon questions
What is Meta-ExternalFetcher?
Meta-ExternalFetcher is an AI web crawler operated by Meta. Meta’s fetcher used to retrieve pages on demand for AI features across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta AI.
How do I block Meta-ExternalFetcher?
Add a directive to your robots.txt: "User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher" followed by "Disallow: /". Partially honours robots.txt.
Does blocking Meta-ExternalFetcher hide me from AI?
Typically fetches a specific page to support a Meta AI answer or link feature rather than crawling your whole site.
Identity and robots.txt facts come from Meta's published bot documentation. Behaviour is measured from identified Meta-ExternalFetcher requests in the server logs of the brands Trakkr tracks - 576K crawler visits across 84 sites, recounted as new data arrives.
Telemetry updated Feb 1, 2026.