AI agents · Answer engine
Meta-ExternalFetcher
Meta-ExternalFetcher is Meta's answer engine: it fetches pages to answer people's questions in chat.
- Operator
- Meta
- Type
- Answer engine
- User agent
- meta-externalfetcher
- Verified by
- User agent only
What Meta-ExternalFetcher does
An answer engine fetches a page when a person asks its assistant something in chat, so it can read the page and answer with it. A visit usually means someone, right then, asked about something your site covers.
How to recognize it
Meta-ExternalFetcher names itself in its user agent with the token meta-externalfetcher. That's what Ethogram matches, as a whole word in any case.
A user agent is only a claim, though: anyone can send meta-externalfetcher. Scrapers borrow well-known names to get past rules meant for the real agent, so before you trust a visit, or block one, check where it came from.
How to tell it's really Meta-ExternalFetcher
Meta publishes no IP ranges, hostnames or signing keys for Meta-ExternalFetcher that Ethogram knows of, so there's nothing to check a visit against. Ethogram counts its visits as unverified: they may well be real, but the user agent is all there is.
Ethogram runs these checks on every request and gives each visit a verdict: verified, unverified or spoofed. Spoofed visits are counted apart and never added to Meta-ExternalFetcher's numbers. How verdicts work.
Allow or block Meta-ExternalFetcher in robots.txt
robots.txt groups its rules by user-agent token. To ask Meta-ExternalFetcher to stay off your whole site, add this group:
# Keep meta-externalfetcher out of the whole siteUser-agent: meta-externalfetcherDisallow: /To let it read everything, name it with an allow rule. A group that names meta-externalfetcher replaces the User-agent: * group for it, so it follows only these rules:
# Let meta-externalfetcher read the whole siteUser-agent: meta-externalfetcherAllow: /robots.txt is a request, not a lock: it's up to Meta-ExternalFetcher to read it and follow it. Ethogram reads your robots.txt every day and shows whether Meta-ExternalFetcher respects it, with the disallowed paths it asked for. To actually keep it out, use your firewall or bot protection, and check the visit's verdict first so you block impostors, not the real Meta-ExternalFetcher.
See what Meta-ExternalFetcher does on your site
Most analytics filter Meta-ExternalFetcher out as a bot. Ethogram records it on your server, where every request lands, with no script to load, and shows:
- Every visit from Meta-ExternalFetcher, with a verdict on whether it's really Meta-ExternalFetcher.
- Each visit step by step: the pages it read, what it searched for, and where it was blocked, looped or hit an error.
- Whether it respects your robots.txt, with the disallowed paths it asked for.
- How often its visits reach your goals, such as a purchase or a sign-up, ranked against other agents.
- New versions of its user agent as they appear, and what changed in its behavior with each.
- A heads-up when its visits spike or stop, or when it starts getting blocked.