Directory/Categories/Page Preview/MicrosoftPreview

MicrosoftPreview

Name: MicrosoftPreview
Author: Microsoft

GoodBotVerifiedBOT

A specialized agent used by Microsoft services to fetch metadata and generate link previews for shared URLs. Operated by Microsoft.

Operator website ↗

GoodBot

Assessment

Page Preview

What is MicrosoftPreview?

MicrosoftPreview is a dedicated metadata fetcher operated by Microsoft to support link unfurling and content preview features across its ecosystem. Unlike traditional search crawlers that index the web for ranking, this bot performs targeted, single-page fetches triggered by user interactions, such as pasting a URL into a Microsoft Teams chat or an Outlook email. It retrieves essential page metadata, including Open Graph tags and Twitter Cards, to render accurate titles, descriptions, and images for shared links.

Helpful — It enhances user experience by providing rich previews for links shared across Microsoft platforms like Teams, Outlook, and Skype.

Identification

Bot name

MicrosoftPreview

Operator

Microsoft

Why it crawls your site

The bot crawls specifically to improve the visual and informational quality of links shared within Microsoft products. By fetching the target page's metadata, it ensures that users see a relevant preview rather than a raw URL, which improves engagement and clarity. You can verify the bot's legitimacy by checking the user-agent string for the official Microsoft reference link (aka.ms/MicrosoftPreview) and ensuring the request originates from Microsoft's verified IP ranges.

Block or allow MicrosoftPreview

Block it

Add a Disallow rule for MicrosoftPreview in your robots.txt file. You can also block at the server level using your web server configuration or CDN firewall rules to filter requests matching the user-agent string.

# Block MicrosoftPreview from crawling your entire site
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
Disallow: /

# Allow MicrosoftPreview full access
User-agent: MicrosoftPreview
Allow: /