What is meta-externalads?
meta-externalads is a web crawler operated by Meta that scans websites to gather information about content that may be shared or advertised on Facebook's platform. The bot helps Meta understand external web content, optimize ad delivery, and manage advertisements across their social media properties. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Meta |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | August 11, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
meta-externalads usually returns to a small set of pages rather than crawling an entire site. Visits may follow an hourly, daily, or weekly schedule, while websites its clients do not monitor may never encounter it.
meta-externalads's User Agent
| User Agent | meta-externalads/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler) |
How To Block meta-externalads With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block meta-externalads from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all intelligence gatherers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: meta-externalads # https://knownagents.com/agents/meta-externalads
Disallow: /Global Statistics for meta-externalads
As of August 11, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
1% of top websites block meta-externalads in their robots.txt files.
Overall Intelligence Gatherer Traffic
3.5% of all web traffic came from intelligence gatherers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by meta-externalads.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block meta-externalads?
If you run ads, confirm meta-externalads's purpose before blocking it. Some intelligence gatherers measure ad placements or evaluate pages for brand safety, and blocking those agents can interfere with advertising systems. If this one serves a different purpose, weigh any research visibility against sharing business or page-level data with third parties. For context, 1% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for meta-externalads.
Does meta-externalads Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. meta-externalads is expected to follow robots.txt directives, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether meta-externalads respects it.
Does meta-externalads Access Private Content?
No special access. meta-externalads can read publicly available pages but cannot bypass authentication. Assume anything you publish openly may be collected.
Why Is meta-externalads Visiting My Website?
A client of Meta may be gathering competitive intelligence, measuring advertisements, or evaluating content for brand safety. The pages requested reflect that client's objective.
How Can I Tell if meta-externalads Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks visits from meta-externalads and every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper, then authenticates each visit using meta-externalads's published verification method. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "meta-externalads". Look for repeated requests to the same small group of commercial or ad-supported pages. A matching log entry alone is not proof because any bot can claim to be meta-externalads.