WhatsApp

Last updated 17 hours ago.

What is WhatsApp?

About

WhatsApp is a fetcher operated by Meta. It's not currently known to be artificially intelligent or AI-related. If you think that's incorrect or can provide more detail about its purpose, please contact us.

You can set up agent analytics to see when WhatsApp visits your website.

Detail

Operator Meta

Type

Fetcher
Fetches web content on behalf of an app

Expected Behavior

Fetchers visit websites on-demand. They're normally dispatched by apps to present metadata about a link (e.g. the title and thumbnail image) to a user.

Insights

WhatsApp Visiting Your Website

50% of your traffic probably comes from artificial agents, and there are more of them every day. Track their activity with the API or WordPress plugin.

Set Up Agent Analytics

Other Websites

0%
0% of top websites are blocking WhatsApp
Learn How →

Access Control

Should I Block WhatsApp?

Probably not. If you block a fetcher, it won't be able to fetch the metadata it needs to display a link preview. Fewer people will click on the link to your website without this.

Using Robots.txt

You can block WhatsApp or limit its access by setting user agent token rules in your website's robots.txt. We recommend setting up agent analytics to check whether it's actually following them.

User Agent Token Description
WhatsApp Should match instances of WhatsApp 
# robots.txt
# This should block WhatsApp

User-agent: WhatsApp
Disallow: /

Instead of doing this manually, you can use the API or Wordpress plugin to keep your robots.txt updated with the latest known AI scrapers, crawlers, and assistants automatically.

Set Up Automatic Robots.txt