AI training, run by Meta.

What is FacebookBot? Meta's crawler that collects AI training data. It can't be verified beyond its name.

Run by Meta.
Purpose: AI training. A visit means your content is being collected, possibly for training.
robots.txt name: FacebookBot.
Name only: no published list to check a visit against.

At a glance, the facts in one table.

FacebookBot at a glance. Taken from SenseGap's open bot directory, the same data that sorts every visit in the dashboard.

FacebookBot facts
	FacebookBot
Operator	Meta
Purpose	AI training
User agent contains	`FacebookBot`
robots.txt name	`FacebookBot`
Verification	Name only
Documentation	None listed

Purpose, what it does and why it came.

What FacebookBot does. SenseGap sorts every visit by purpose. FacebookBot is in the AI training group.

FacebookBot is Meta's crawler that collects web content that may be used to train AI models.

What a visit means

A visit means your content is being collected, possibly for training. Nobody asked about you; training crawlers read the web in bulk and don't link back.

Training crawls say nothing about what people ask right now. SenseGap keeps them apart from visits made while answering a person, so a crawl spike never looks like demand.

Detection, the header SenseGap matches.

How SenseGap recognizes FacebookBot. By its User-Agent header. A separate check then decides whether the visit is real.

Every request carries a User-Agent header naming the software that sent it. SenseGap counts a request as FacebookBot when that header contains FacebookBot, in any letter case. The header is plain text, so any script can copy it. Matching the name is where recognition starts, not where trust starts.

Pattern matched against User-Agent

/FacebookBot/i

Verification, how to tell a real visit from a fake.

FacebookBot can't be fully verified. SenseGap knows of no published IP ranges or DNS names for it, so the name is all there is.

How we verify bots

What this means

Not beyond the user agent. SenseGap knows of no published IP ranges or DNS names for FacebookBot, so anyone can send its name. SenseGap marks these visits Unverified rather than calling them real.

robots.txt, rules you can copy.

Block or allow FacebookBot in robots.txt. Its robots.txt name is FacebookBot. Paste a group into the robots.txt at your site's root.

Block the whole site

User-agent: FacebookBot
Disallow: /

Allow the whole site

User-agent: FacebookBot
Allow: /

Block one folder

User-agent: FacebookBot
Disallow: /private/

One rule catches people out. Under the robots.txt standard (RFC 9309), a crawler that finds a group naming it follows only that group and ignores your User-agent: * rules. If you add a FacebookBot group, repeat in it anything from the catch-all group you still want applied.

robots.txt is a request, not a lock. To enforce a block, match the User-Agent header at your server or CDN. In nginx:

Enforce it at the server

# nginx, inside a server block
if ($http_user_agent ~* "FacebookBot") {
    return 403;
}

SenseGap reads your robots.txt and shows, bot by bot, what you allow and which bots fetched pages you disallowed. See what you get.

Trade-off, what blocking changes.

Should you block FacebookBot? It depends on what you want from Meta. Here is what each choice means.

If you allow it
Future models may learn from your content, so they know your products, prices and wording.
If you block it
New content stops reaching that company's training data. It doesn't remove what was already collected, and because training crawlers don't send visitors, it costs no clicks directly.

Meta, every bot it runs.

More bots from Meta. Meta runs 5 bots in the directory, each with its own job.

AI training, other bots with the same job.

Other AI training crawlers. Same purpose, different companies.

Browse the directory

FAQ, FacebookBot in short answers.

FacebookBot, answered plainly