Who operates SlackLinkExpandingBot?

SlackLinkExpandingBot is operated by Slack. It functions as Slack's link preview bot.

Does SlackLinkExpandingBot respect robots.txt?

Yes. SlackLinkExpandingBot generally follows robots.txt directives, so you can allow or disallow it with a rule for its user agent.

SlackLinkExpandingBot - What It Is & How to Handle It

Q: Should I block SlackLinkExpandingBot?

Usually no, allowing it lets your shared links render rich previews. Block it only if you do not want preview cards for your pages.

What is SlackLinkExpandingBot?

SlackLinkExpandingBot is Slack's link preview bot. Slackbot Link Expanding is a bot operated by Slack that fetches metadata from shared links to create rich previews. The bot uses HTTP Range headers to efficiently fetch only necessary metadata like oEmbed and Open Graph tags, and caches responses globally for about 30 minutes.

SlackLinkExpandingBot controls how your links look when they are shared. Rich previews drive clicks across social and messaging platforms, and clean preview metadata also helps AI systems parse your pages. Allowing it keeps your content looking polished wherever it appears.

Like any automated client, SlackLinkExpandingBot consumes crawl budget and appears in your server and CDN logs. Reviewing those logs alongside your robots.txt rules helps you keep automated traffic deliberate and easy to reason about.

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How to handle SlackLinkExpandingBot

You will usually want SlackLinkExpandingBot allowed so shared links render rich previews. Block it only if you do not want preview cards generated for your pages.

To control SlackLinkExpandingBot, add a rule for its user agent to your robots.txt:

User-agent: SlackLinkExpandingBot
Disallow: /

SlackLinkExpandingBot generally honors robots.txt directives.

Examples

When a user shares a link, SlackLinkExpandingBot fetches the page's Open Graph tags to build a rich preview card.
A team adds Open Graph and image metadata so SlackLinkExpandingBot renders an attractive preview for shared URLs.