What is meta-webindexer?
meta-webindexer is Meta's web crawler that browses the internet to improve search results for Meta AI users. It analyzes online content to make Meta AI's responses more relevant and accurate, allowing proper citation and linking back to source content. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Category
Expected Behavior
meta-webindexer works like Googlebot with a less predictable calendar. Expect recurring crawls across your whole site, at a frequency that tracks how often your content changes and how much authority your site carries. Visits can cluster in bursts when its index refreshes.
Overview
| Operated By | Meta |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | July 7, 2026 |
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
As of July 7, 2026, 3% of top websites block meta-webindexer in their robots.txt files.
Overall AI Search Crawler Traffic
As of July 7, 2026, 2.7% of all web traffic came from AI search crawlers.
Top Visited Website Categories
This data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the world's top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
meta-webindexer's User Agent
| User Agent | meta-webindexer/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler) |
Access other known user agents and IP addresses using the Enterprise API.
How To Block meta-webindexer
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block meta-webindexer from accessing your entire website. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: meta-webindexer # https://knownagents.com/agents/meta-webindexer
Disallow: /Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block meta-webindexer?
No, for the same reason you would not block Googlebot. meta-webindexer indexes your site for an AI search engine, and its results link back to you. Blocking it removes you from a whole search channel without helping your traditional rankings. For comparison, 3% of the top websites we track already have robots.txt rules for meta-webindexer.
Does meta-webindexer Respect Robots.txt?
Yes. meta-webindexer is expected to honor robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the right first move. Automatic Robots.txt adds and maintains that rule for you, and Agent Analytics confirms meta-webindexer actually honors it.
Does meta-webindexer Access Private Content?
No. meta-webindexer indexes what an anonymous visitor can load, like a traditional search crawler. The bigger risk is content that is public by accident, like a staging site, which it will happily index.
Why Is meta-webindexer Visiting My Website?
meta-webindexer is indexing your site so your pages can appear in its AI search results. It found you through links, your sitemap, or mentions of your domain, and it returns on its own schedule to keep the index fresh.
How Can I Tell if meta-webindexer Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks meta-webindexer visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user agent string contains "meta-webindexer". Look for recurring visits spread across your site, like a search engine crawl. Keep in mind that meta-webindexer doesn't publish a verification method, so any client can claim its user agent string and a log match is a hint rather than proof.