Engine guide: Meta AI

How to get cited by Meta AI

Meta AI lives in apps people open dozens of times a day. It answers in a chat window, often on a phone.

The short answer

Meta documents meta-webindexer, which crawls to improve Meta AI search and helps it cite and link your content. It also lists meta-externalagent for training or indexing and meta-externalfetcher for user-requested fetches, which may bypass robots.txt. Allow meta-webindexer if you want to be cited, and write short answers a phone can show.

What ranked on 26 September 2026: Meta's crawler documentation and bot directories rank for related queries. Meta publishes little about which search provider backs web answers.

Last reviewed 19 October 2026 · 1 sources

What is specific to Meta AI

Distribution is the story. The assistant sits inside messaging, so questions are short and practical.

meta-webindexer crawls to improve Meta AI search and helps it cite your content
meta-externalagent crawls for training or indexing and can be blocked in robots.txt
meta-externalfetcher fetches user-requested links and may bypass robots.txt
facebookexternalhit builds link previews and is separate
Robots.txt changes can take up to 24 hours

Claim and reality

Things that sound right and are not.

Flip a card for what is actually true.

Claim
Blocking meta-externalagent removes us from Meta AI.
Claim
Our Instagram presence covers this.
Claim
Link previews do not matter here.

Where to start

In order. Tick as you go, or copy the list.

0 of 5 done

Decide on each Meta crawler in robots.txt and record why. Allow meta-webindexer to be eligible for citation.
Check Open Graph tags on key pages with Meta's sharing debugger.
Put short answers, such as hours, prices, delivery areas and how to book, near the top of the page.
Ask Meta AI your category questions inside WhatsApp and Instagram. Note which sources it shows.
Make details match across your site, Google Business Profile and Facebook page.

Questions

Asked most.

Does Meta AI cite websites at all?

Meta says allowing meta-webindexer helps it cite and link content. Many answers may carry no links, so test current or local questions.

Which countries have web search?

Availability changes by market. Test from where your buyers are.

Is facebookexternalhit an AI crawler?

No. It fetches pages to build link previews when a URL is shared.

Evidence, labelled

What is confirmed, what is reported, what is a hunch.

Each claim is labelled and sourced. Google rows speak only for Google.

Last reviewed 19 October 2026 · 1 sources

Confirmed: Stated in the platform's own documentation or measured in published data.
Hypothesis: Plausible and common advice. No controlled public evidence.

meta-webindexer helps Meta AI cite your content.
Confirmed
Meta says it crawls to improve Meta AI search results and that allowing it helps Meta AI cite and link your content.
Meta, crawlers (opens in a new tab)
meta-externalfetcher respects robots.txt.
Confirmed
Meta says it may bypass robots.txt because the fetch is user-requested. meta-externalagent can be blocked.
Meta, crawlers (opens in a new tab)
Meta AI is a strong AEO channel today.
Hypothesis
I found no published citation data for Meta AI. Treat it as a secondary channel and test before investing.
No public source

Sources, fetched 19 October 2026

01Meta web crawlers (opens in a new tab)Meta for Developers · No date shown

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