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# Meta-ExternalAds

> Meta-ExternalAds is an other bot run by Meta. It crawls the web for uses such as improving advertising and other business-related products and services.

- Operator: Meta
- Kind: Other bot
- robots.txt token: meta-externalads
- Follows robots.txt: yes
- Source: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers (checked 2026-11-05)
- Page: https://invisit.dev/bots/meta-externalads

## What is Meta-ExternalAds?

It crawls the web for uses such as improving advertising and other business-related products and services.

A bot that fits none of the groups above, such as an ad review crawler.

Meta crawlers may cache robots.txt for up to 24 hours.

- [Meta’s documentation](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers)

## Meta-ExternalAds user agent

Meta documents these user agents for Meta-ExternalAds. Version numbers in it change over time, so match on the name, not the whole string.

```
meta-externalads/1.1 (+/documentation/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers)
meta-externalads/1.1
```

## Should you block Meta-ExternalAds?

It depends on what it does; read the operator’s page below.

## How to block Meta-ExternalAds in robots.txt

Add a group for its token to robots.txt at the root of your site.

A bot follows only the group that names it, so it ignores your `User-agent: *` rules once it has a group of its own. Repeat any paths you also want kept from it there.

```
User-agent: meta-externalads
Disallow: /
```

- [Build a robots.txt for AI bots](https://invisit.dev/tools/robots-txt-generator)

## How to verify a request is really Meta-ExternalAds

Anyone can send any user agent, so the string alone proves nothing.

Meta publishes no IP ranges or DNS names for Meta-ExternalAds that we could find, so there is no reliable way to tell a real Meta-ExternalAds from a scraper using its user agent.

## See when Meta-ExternalAds reads your site

Bots don’t run JavaScript analytics, so a script tag never sees them. invisit records crawler reads on the server instead, through its server SDK or a Cloudflare Worker, and shows which bots read which pages, next to your visitors.

- [Track crawlers with invisit](https://invisit.dev/docs/server/sdk#crawler-reads)

## Common questions

### What is Meta-ExternalAds?

Meta-ExternalAds is an other bot run by Meta. It crawls the web for uses such as improving advertising and other business-related products and services.

### Is Meta-ExternalAds safe to block?

It depends on what it does; read the operator’s page below.

### How do I block Meta-ExternalAds?

Add “User-agent: meta-externalads” followed by “Disallow: /” to your robots.txt.