What is Meta-ExternalAgent?
Meta-ExternalAgent is Meta's AI training crawler. Collects pages to train Meta's Llama models.
What does Meta-ExternalAgent do with your content?
Collects pages to train Meta's Llama models. Like most AI crawlers, Meta-ExternalAgent reads your pages as plain HTML — it does not run JavaScript — so content that only appears after scripts execute is invisible to it.
Should you block Meta-ExternalAgent?
This is a genuine trade-off. Allowing Meta-ExternalAgent lets future Meta models learn your business exists — useful when customers ask those models for recommendations. Blocking it keeps your content out of training data at the cost of that future visibility. Neither answer is wrong; it depends on what you value more.
How do you allow or block Meta-ExternalAgent in robots.txt?
Add one of these snippets to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. The first explicitly allows Meta-ExternalAgent everywhere; the second blocks it completely.
# Allow Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
Allow: /
# Block Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
Disallow: /Is robots.txt enough?
Not always. CDNs and firewalls (Cloudflare in particular) can block crawlers at the network level regardless of what robots.txt says — Cloudflare blocks AI crawlers by default for many accounts. If you want Meta-ExternalAgent to reach your site, check your CDN's bot settings too. SeeGeo's free audit checks both.
Frequently asked questions
What is Meta-ExternalAgent?
Meta-ExternalAgent is Meta's AI training crawler. Collects pages to train Meta's Llama models.
Should I block Meta-ExternalAgent?
This is a genuine trade-off. Allowing Meta-ExternalAgent lets future Meta models learn your business exists — useful when customers ask those models for recommendations.
Does Meta-ExternalAgent run JavaScript?
No. Meta-ExternalAgent, like most AI crawlers, reads raw HTML without executing JavaScript. If your content only renders client-side, it is effectively invisible to it.