Overview

The News Indexing API allows you to programmatically index published articles from your website and surface them in Facebook News. To use this API, URLs must use the HTTP/HTTPS protocol, domains must be verified, and the Facebook Crawler must be allowed to crawl your website.

As with any application that makes calls to the Facebook Social Graph, you will need to register your app with Facebook. This app should be dedicated to making URL indexing calls. During registration, you will receive a Facebook App ID that will help Facebook authenticate Graph API calls from your news indexing app.

To index a URL you will make a POST request with the URL to be indexed using a system user access token, which you can get in the Business Manager. Indexed URLs are represented by Graph API url objects. In this initial call the URL will be in development. You can then make another call to push to production in Facebook News.

Using the News Indexing API will allow you to check the status, in development or production, of an indexed URL, update news article metadata using the Facebook Webcrawler, and hide or unhide an article from production by adding it to or removing it from the denylist.

Authentication

Facebook App

A Facebook App with basic settings configured is needed to integrate with the News API. You can either create an App from your developer account or from the Business Manager. We recommend using an app that is dedicated to only indexing URLs to avoid the Platform Application Rate Limits. Learn more.

System Users

System users represent servers or software that make API calls to assets owned or managed by a Business Manager. You will need a system user with access to your Facebook News Indexing app. Learn more.

System User Access Token

A system user access token is required for News Indexing API calls. Because these calls are made by a business server or application, Facebook Login can not be used for authentication.

Authorization

Domain Verification

To confirm ownership of articles, prevent misuse of domains, and to keep bad actors from spreading misinformation, you will need to verify your domains. Domain Verification allows you to control editing privileges of your links and other content. Learn more.

Facebook Webcrawler

When individual URLs are shared on Facebook platform, the webcrawler gathers, caches, and displays information about the website. Information such as the title, description, and thumbnail image for an article can then be used to generate a preview. To allow Facebook to scrape your website content, you will need to allow list the Facebook Crawler. Learn more.

Business Manager

A Facebook Business Manager allows you to create a system user and a system user access tokens to use for authenticating calls to the Facebook Social Graph. Learn more.

Graph API Endpoints

When URLs are uploaded to the Facebook Social Graph, they are stored as url objects. These URL objects can then be used to manage your indexed articles. Learn more.

Rate Limiting

Requests made by an app using the News Indexing API are counted against the app's rate limit. We recommend using your app for News Indexing API calls only to mitigate rate limiting issues. Rate limits are dependent on whether the request is made in development , indexing a new article, or live, publishing an indexed article as well as limits enforced based on Total CPU and Total Time. Learn more about News Indexing limits and total CPU and time limits.

Next Steps

Learn how to index a URL using the News Indexing API in our Get Started guide.