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AI search crawler · Meta

Meta-WebIndexer is Meta’s AI search crawler

Meta-WebIndexer is a Meta crawler that improves search results in Meta AI. Allowing it helps Meta AI cite and link to your content.

Verifiable operator Respects robots.txt

Our take

Allow

It powers citations and links in Meta AI search answers and is controlled by robots.txt.

User agent

meta-webindexer/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)

Activity

Meta-WebIndexer is crawling more than last month

Requests per site per dayLAST 28 DAYS
Sep 30Oct 9Oct 18Oct 27
What it crawls30 DAYS
  • Content pages 94%
  • Not found (404) 4.5%
  • Images & assets 0.8%
  • Other 0.2%

01 · Operator

Who operates Meta-WebIndexer

Company
Meta
Official docs
developers.facebook.com

02 · Behavior

What Meta-WebIndexer does

Meta-WebIndexer navigates the web to improve the quality of Meta AI search results. Meta analyzes the content to make Meta AI answers more relevant and accurate. Meta says allowing it helps Meta AI cite and link to your pages.

03 · Impact

Why Meta-WebIndexer matters for your site

If you allow it

  • Meta AI can cite and link to your content
  • Controlled through robots.txt
  • Requests come from Meta's own network

If you block it

  • Content is analyzed for Meta AI answers
  • Adds crawl load

04 · Allow

How to allow Meta-WebIndexer

robots.txt

User-agent: meta-webindexer
Allow: /

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "meta-webindexer")
Action:     Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules

# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.

WordPress

# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: meta-webindexer
Allow: /

nginx

# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "meta\-webindexer") { return 403; }

Apache

# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} meta\-webindexer [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

05 · Block

How to block Meta-WebIndexer

Meta-WebIndexer follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.

robots.txt

User-agent: meta-webindexer
Disallow: /

Cloudflare

# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "meta-webindexer")
Action:     Block

WordPress

# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: meta-webindexer
Disallow: /

nginx

# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "meta\-webindexer") {
    return 403;
}

Apache

# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} meta\-webindexer [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>

06 · User agents

User agents we see for Meta-WebIndexer

User agentShareLast activeStatus
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.0.0 Sa… 60% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.… 29% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.0.0 Safari/537.3… 6.4% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.0.0 Sa… 1.2% Yesterday Verified
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/144.0.0.0 Sa… 0.6% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.… 0.6% Yesterday Verified
meta-webindexer/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler) 0.5% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Meta-WebIndexer/1.0; +https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmaste… 0.3% 2 days ago Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:147.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/147.0 (compatible; meta-w… 0.2% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:147.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/147.0 (compatible; meta-webindexer/… 0.2% Yesterday Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.0.0 Safari/537.3… 0.1% Yesterday Verified
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:147.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/147.0 (compatible; meta-web… 0.1% Yesterday Unverified
meta-webindexer/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler) 0% 2 days ago Verified
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/145.0.7632.6… 0% 2 days ago Unverified
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:146.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/146.0 (compatible; meta-webindexer/… 0% Yesterday Unverified

07 · Verification

Is it really Meta-WebIndexer?

Meta-WebIndexer’s operator publishes no IP ranges or hostnames, so requests cannot be verified. Treat the user agent as a claim, and watch your logs for unusual request rates.

IP addresses we saw from verified Meta-WebIndexer requests

IP rangeShareLast active
57.141.22.10 51% Yesterday
57.141.22.47 48% Yesterday
173.252.100.0/22 0.5% 3 days ago
69.171.224.0/20 0.4% 2 days ago
173.252.127.6 0.0% 15 days ago
173.252.83.4 0.0% 15 days ago
173.252.83.27 0.0% 15 days ago
173.252.127.112 0.0% 15 days ago
173.252.127.29 0.0% 15 days ago
173.252.127.24 0.0% 15 days ago

Top 10 of 18 ranges. Always check against the operator’s current list; ranges change.

FAQ

Questions about Meta-WebIndexer

What is meta-webindexer?

It is Meta's crawler for Meta AI search. It helps Meta AI answer questions and cite web sources.

How do I verify Meta-WebIndexer IPs?

Check that the IP belongs to Meta's AS32934. Meta suggests: whois -h whois.radb.net -- '-i origin AS32934' | grep ^route.

Is Meta-WebIndexer the same as Meta-ExternalAgent?

No. Meta lists them as separate crawlers with separate robots.txt tokens.

Last updated Oct 27, 2026

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