Google Messages Link Preview generates rich previews for URLs shared in Google Messages RCS conversations. Like the equivalent Apple feature, the fetch is performed on the user's Android device, so requests arrive from consumer mobile and broadband addresses rather than from Google-owned server ranges. Its user agent prefixes a GoogleMessages build token and appends the facebookexternalhit, Facebot and Twitterbot tokens to elicit Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata; the requests are not made by Meta or by X. Because the traffic originates on end-user devices, no IP range or reverse-DNS verification is possible.

At a glance

Operator: Google
Type: Preview

How Centinel checks it

User agent: The request calls itself this crawler. Anyone can send the same string.

Google Messages Link Preview publishes nothing Centinel can check a source against, so a match reports the name and leaves the source unconfirmed. The match tokens, verification domains, and address feeds are not published here.

Allowing or blocking it

The crawler object in the /validate response sets access_allowed to true only for a verified source that your tenant allowlists. A policy rule can allow or block this crawler by its category, Preview.

Back to the crawler catalog