Websites blocking meta-externalfetcher
Meta's fetcher for user-initiated requests, for example when a Meta AI product retrieves a specific link a user asked about.
Operated by Meta · User-request fetcher · operator documentation
3.60%
block meta-externalfetcher
896K of 24.91 million domains with a known robots.txt policy
0.10%
block it by name
26,121 domains, the rest inherit a blanket
* block
0.12%
restrict it by name
30,509 domains name it and close some of its paths
0.33%
name it in robots.txt
82,973 domains give it rules of their own
Data for Aug 2026. All four percentages
divide by the same 24.91 million domains. Blocked counts both
explicit User-agent: meta-externalfetcher blocks and blanket
* blocks the crawler inherits.
Historical mentions, HTTP Archive
0.2%
0.4%
0.6%
Sep 2024
Mar 2025
Aug 2025
Feb 2026
Jul 2026
Share of sites in each month's
HTTP Archive crawl whose robots.txt named
meta-externalfetcher. This series counts
mentions only (the archive keeps no rule text), comes from a different population than our own
crawl above, and the two are never merged.
High-authority sites blocking meta-externalfetcher by name
| Domain | OPROpen Page Rank | Blocking since |
|---|---|---|
| linkedin.com | 9.82/10 | Aug 2026 |
| nytimes.com | 9.28/10 | Aug 2026 |
| usatoday.com | 9.08/10 | Aug 2026 |
| lnkd.in | 9.05/10 | Aug 2026 |
| congress.gov | 9.05/10 | Aug 2026 |
| msn.com | 9.04/10 | Aug 2026 |
| theatlantic.com | 9.01/10 | Aug 2026 |
| investopedia.com | 9.01/10 | Aug 2026 |
| huffpost.com | 8.91/10 | Aug 2026 |
| newyorker.com | 8.90/10 | Aug 2026 |
| mashable.com | 8.87/10 | Aug 2026 |
| smh.com.au | 8.86/10 | Aug 2026 |
| arstechnica.com | 8.84/10 | Aug 2026 |
| wikihow.com | 8.81/10 | Aug 2026 |
| pcmag.com | 8.80/10 | Aug 2026 |
| technologyreview.com | 8.78/10 | Aug 2026 |
| amazon.it | 8.78/10 | Aug 2026 |
| verywellmind.com | 8.72/10 | Aug 2026 |
| metro.co.uk | 8.72/10 | Aug 2026 |
| repubblica.it | 8.71/10 | Aug 2026 |
| people.com | 8.70/10 | Aug 2026 |
| nikkeibp.co.jp | 8.68/10 | Aug 2026 |
| nos.nl | 8.67/10 | Aug 2026 |
| launchpad.net | 8.63/10 | Aug 2026 |
| computerworld.com | 8.63/10 | Aug 2026 |
| fedoraproject.org | 8.62/10 | Aug 2026 |
| francebleu.fr | 8.61/10 | Aug 2026 |
| verywellhealth.com | 8.59/10 | Aug 2026 |
| svt.se | 8.59/10 | Aug 2026 |
| thespruce.com | 8.58/10 | Aug 2026 |
Sites whose robots.txt names meta-externalfetcher (or a legacy
alias) with a full block, ranked by Open Page Rank. Sites blocking every crawler with a blanket
* rule are counted above but not listed here. Since dates start at our first
observation of the rule.