Meta · Meta AI

meta-externalagent

Collects pages to train Meta’s AI models. Here is how to recognise it, verify it, and allow or block it.

Company: Meta
Product: Meta AI
Why it visits: Collecting for AI training
How to verify: Name only
User-agent contains: meta-externalagent

How to tell a real meta-externalagent from a fake

Meta publishes no IP list and no DNS names for meta-externalagent, so a visit can’t be proven real. Anyone can put “meta-externalagent” in a user-agent. Treat it as unverified, and watch how much it crawls.

Check a meta-externalagent visit

Allow or block meta-externalagent in robots.txt

Block it everywhere:

User-agent: meta-externalagent Disallow: /

Allow it everywhere:

User-agent: meta-externalagent Allow: /

Fake bots ignore robots.txt: block them by address in your firewall instead.