---
schema_version: "newruntime-reader-dossiers-v1"
type: "reader_dossier"
slug: "facebookexternalhit"
kind: "link_preview"
operator: "Meta"
researched_at: "2026-10-23"
confidence: "high"
json_url: "https://newruntime.com/readers/facebookexternalhit.json"
canonical_url: "https://newruntime.com/readers/facebookexternalhit/"
---

# facebookexternalhit

> Meta's fetcher that retrieves pages shared on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger to build and cache link previews (title, description, thumbnail).

## Dossier

- Kind: Link previewers
- Operator: Meta (https://www.meta.com/)
- Documentation: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers/
- robots.txt tokens: facebookexternalhit
- Feeds: link preview
- Respects robots.txt: Partly, per its documentation. Docs: may bypass robots.txt for security or integrity checks.
- Verification: Unknown
- Labels matched in our logs: facebook external hit, facebookexternalhit

## Why it matters to New Runtime (our interpretation)

Someone shared a New Runtime link on a Meta surface; a human distribution signal.

## Observed behaviour

- Baseline 2026-10-24 (94-day window): 5,255 requests on 86 days; first seen 2026-07-24, last seen 2026-10-24; Regular.
- Live numbers: https://newruntime.com/bot-traffic-history.json and https://newruntime.com/crawler-journeys.json

## Sources

- https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/web-crawlers/

Identity: A family name is what a client claims in its user agent. It is verified only when its request came from the operator's published IP ranges or passed forward-confirmed reverse DNS, as reported per family in /crawler-journeys.json. Anyone can claim any name.

All dossiers: https://newruntime.com/readers.md