Bot Directory

Social and Messaging Previews

Social and messaging preview bots fetch a page when someone shares its link on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram and similar apps. They read the title, description and Open Graph image to build the preview card, and do not index the page for search.

Social and Messaging Previews at a glance

This group lists 22 bots.
Blocking a social preview bot has no effect on search rankings.
No direct effect on AI answers, but shared links lose their title, image and description, which usually lowers clicks from social and chat apps.

All Social and Messaging Previews

Bot	Company	Purpose	robots.txt	For GEO
Bluesky	Bluesky	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
Discordbot	Discord	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
FacebookExternalHit	Meta	Link previewOfficial docs	Yes	Allow
Facebot	Meta	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
GoogleMessages	Google	Link previewOfficial docs	Not for user-requested fetches	Allow
LinkedInBot	LinkedIn	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
Mastodon	Mastodon	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
MicrosoftPreview	Microsoft	Link previewOfficial docs	Yes	Allow
OdklBot	VK	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
Pinterestbot	Pinterest	Search indexLink previewOfficial docs	Yes	Allow
Quora-Bot	Quora	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
redditbot	Reddit	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
SkypeUriPreview	Microsoft	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
Slack-ImgProxy	Slack	Link previewOfficial docs	Yes	Allow
Slackbot	Slack	Link previewOfficial docs	Yes	Allow
Snap URL Preview Service	Snap	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
TelegramBot	Telegram	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
Tumblr	Automattic	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
Twitterbot	X	Link previewReported	Yes	Allow
Viber	Rakuten Viber	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
vkShare	VK	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow
WhatsApp	Meta	Link previewReported	Not documented	Allow

Block or allow every bot in Social and Messaging Previews at once

The rules below name all 22 robots.txt tokens in this group. Remove the lines for any bot you want to treat differently.

robots.txt: block

# Block all Social and Messaging Previews
User-agent: Bluesky
User-agent: Discordbot
User-agent: facebookexternalhit
User-agent: Facebot
User-agent: GoogleMessages
User-agent: LinkedInBot
User-agent: Mastodon
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
User-agent: OdklBot
User-agent: Pinterestbot
User-agent: Quora-Bot
User-agent: redditbot
User-agent: SkypeUriPreview
User-agent: Slack-ImgProxy
User-agent: Slackbot
User-agent: Snap URL Preview Service
User-agent: TelegramBot
User-agent: Tumblr
User-agent: Twitterbot
User-agent: Viber
User-agent: vkShare
User-agent: WhatsApp
Disallow: /

robots.txt: allow

# Allow all Social and Messaging Previews
User-agent: Bluesky
User-agent: Discordbot
User-agent: facebookexternalhit
User-agent: Facebot
User-agent: GoogleMessages
User-agent: LinkedInBot
User-agent: Mastodon
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
User-agent: OdklBot
User-agent: Pinterestbot
User-agent: Quora-Bot
User-agent: redditbot
User-agent: SkypeUriPreview
User-agent: Slack-ImgProxy
User-agent: Slackbot
User-agent: Snap URL Preview Service
User-agent: TelegramBot
User-agent: Tumblr
User-agent: Twitterbot
User-agent: Viber
User-agent: vkShare
User-agent: WhatsApp
Allow: /

robots.txt: partial

# Keep all Social and Messaging Previews out of private areas only
User-agent: Bluesky
User-agent: Discordbot
User-agent: facebookexternalhit
User-agent: Facebot
User-agent: GoogleMessages
User-agent: LinkedInBot
User-agent: Mastodon
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
User-agent: OdklBot
User-agent: Pinterestbot
User-agent: Quora-Bot
User-agent: redditbot
User-agent: SkypeUriPreview
User-agent: Slack-ImgProxy
User-agent: Slackbot
User-agent: Snap URL Preview Service
User-agent: TelegramBot
User-agent: Tumblr
User-agent: Twitterbot
User-agent: Viber
User-agent: vkShare
User-agent: WhatsApp
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /

Nginx

# Nginx: return 403 to all Social and Messaging Previews
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Bluesky|Discordbot|facebookexternalhit|Facebot|GoogleMessages|LinkedInBot|Mastodon|MicrosoftPreview|OdklBot|Pinterestbot|Quora\-Bot|redditbot|SkypeUriPreview|Slack\-ImgProxy|Slackbot|Snap URL Preview Service|TelegramBot|Tumblr|Twitterbot|Viber|vkShare|WhatsApp)") {
    return 403;
}

Apache

# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to all Social and Messaging Previews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Bluesky|Discordbot|facebookexternalhit|Facebot|GoogleMessages|LinkedInBot|Mastodon|MicrosoftPreview|OdklBot|Pinterestbot|Quora\-Bot|redditbot|SkypeUriPreview|Slack\-ImgProxy|Slackbot|Snap URL Preview Service|TelegramBot|Tumblr|Twitterbot|Viber|vkShare|WhatsApp) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

Cloudflare WAF

# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Bluesky") or (http.user_agent contains "Discordbot") or (http.user_agent contains "facebookexternalhit") or (http.user_agent contains "Facebot") or (http.user_agent contains "GoogleMessages") or (http.user_agent contains "LinkedInBot") or (http.user_agent contains "Mastodon") or (http.user_agent contains "MicrosoftPreview") or (http.user_agent contains "OdklBot") or (http.user_agent contains "Pinterestbot") or (http.user_agent contains "Quora-Bot") or (http.user_agent contains "redditbot") or (http.user_agent contains "SkypeUriPreview") or (http.user_agent contains "Slack-ImgProxy") or (http.user_agent contains "Slackbot") or (http.user_agent contains "Snap URL Preview Service") or (http.user_agent contains "TelegramBot") or (http.user_agent contains "Tumblr") or (http.user_agent contains "Twitterbot") or (http.user_agent contains "Viber") or (http.user_agent contains "vkShare") or (http.user_agent contains "WhatsApp")

Other bot groups

AI Training Crawlers 44 bots Collect public pages that may be used to train AI models. Blocking them has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. AI Search Crawlers 21 bots Index pages so AI search products can show and cite them. Blocking them removes you from those answers. AI Assistant Fetchers 30 bots Open a page when a user asks an AI assistant about it. They act for one person, not for an index. AI Agents 14 bots Use a browser to complete tasks for users, such as comparing, booking or buying. Search Engine Crawlers 60 bots Index pages for classic search engines. Blocking them removes you from search results. Ads and Platform Fetchers 38 bots Serve one platform feature: ad checks, feeds, verification or safety scans. SEO Tool Crawlers 29 bots Crawl the web for SEO platforms: backlink indexes, rank data and site audits. Blocking them hides your site from those tools. Archives and Research Crawlers 4 bots Save public pages for web archives, libraries and research. Blocking them stops new snapshots of your site.

See which of these bots actually reach your website

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