Meta-ExternalAds
Meta operates Meta-ExternalAds, a crawler the operator says crawls the web for use cases such as improving advertising and other business-related products and services. It honors robots.txt under the token meta-externalads. Meta documents no IP range file or reverse-DNS suffix for it; the only guidance is a page-wide note to allow-list user agent strings or IP addresses.
meta-externalads/1.1 (+/documentation/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers)What Meta-ExternalAds does
The crawler identifies itself as meta-externalads/1.1 (+/documentation/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers), and Meta also documents the shorter form meta-externalads/1.1. Meta's description of its job is brief: it crawls the web for use cases such as improving advertising and other business-related products and services. The documentation names no specific product and no content type it targets. Neither JavaScript execution nor crawl rate is documented, so what a site sees is a request stream under that user agent with no operator statement about volume.
Meta's stated purpose is advertising and business products, which is why this registry places it in the 'other' category. Blocking it withdraws your pages from whatever advertising and business-related uses Meta has in mind; the operator does not describe a visible effect on your site, so there is no documented downside such as lost previews or lost search placement. Allowing it lets those uses proceed. The control is a robots.txt group whose User-agent line is the crawler name, meta-externalads, following Meta's page-wide robots.txt guidance; the page does not show the rule in a literal robots.txt example and states no exception for this crawler.
Verification is the weak point. Meta's crawler page publishes no IP file and no reverse-DNS suffix for Meta-ExternalAds, and no ASN either. The only related guidance is page-wide and says a site can allow-list the user agent strings or the IP addresses, adding that IP addresses are the more secure choice, without publishing the addresses on the crawler page. A site owner therefore has the user-agent string to go on and no operator-supplied way to prove a given request is Meta's.
Operator note. A second documented user-agent form is "meta-externalads/1.1". No per-crawler robots.txt exception is stated; the page-wide instruction "In order to block these crawlers, add a disallow for the relevant crawler to robots.txt." applies. The robots.txt token is the crawler name per that guidance; the page's only worked robots.txt example uses meta-externalagent. JavaScript execution and crawl rate are undocumented.
Controlling Meta-ExternalAds with robots.txt
Use the token meta-externalads in robots.txt. Meta documents that Meta-ExternalAds honors robots.txt directives.
User-agent: meta-externalads
Disallow: /User-agent: meta-externalads
Allow: /Verifying a request is really Meta-ExternalAds
Anyone can put meta-externalads in a User-Agent header. Meta does not document a verification method for this crawler. The web crawlers page gives only a page-wide statement to allow-list "the user agent strings or the IP addresses (more secure)", with no IP file, ASN, or reverse-DNS suffix given.
Common questions
Should I block Meta-ExternalAds?
Meta says this crawler collects web content for improving advertising and other business-related products and services, and describes no benefit to your site from being crawled. If you do not want your pages used for those purposes, add a robots.txt group for User-agent: meta-externalads with a Disallow rule; Meta states the crawler honors robots.txt.
Does Meta-ExternalAds run JavaScript?
The operator's documentation does not say. Meta's web crawlers page gives the user-agent strings and a one-line purpose for Meta-ExternalAds, but makes no statement about JavaScript execution or crawl rate for this crawler.
How do I verify Meta-ExternalAds?
Meta gives no operator-backed method for this crawler. There is no published IP range file, ASN or reverse-DNS suffix on the crawler page, only a page-wide note that allow-listing IP addresses is more secure than allow-listing user agent strings. As the documentation stands, the user-agent string is the only identifier it gives you.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against Meta's own documentation, listed below, and re-checked by a second reviewer before publication. Reviewed September 2026.
Related crawlers
This registry documents how operators describe their own bots so site owners can identify and control them. It does not publish third-party IP lists or guess at undocumented behaviour. To see how your own site responds to automated visitors, the bot detection scanner reads a URL's live response and names the protection it finds.