APOSTL
Link previews

MicrosoftPreview

Generates page previews for Microsoft products.

Operated by Microsoft
See your agent traffic
PurposeLink previews
HTTP identifierMicrosoftPreview
IdentityVerify beyond the name

THE SIGNAL

What this visit tells you

A preview retrieval can occur without a click through to your site.

Shared URLs
Image responses
Preview fetch errors

Your next move

Inspect preview metadata and the response from the exact URL being shared.

The technical details

Markdown
How to identify it

Look for the MicrosoftPreview identifier in a request’s User-Agent. This is a name match, not identity verification. Version strings may change.

How to check identity

Use Microsoft’s documented bot verification procedure and current IP information; do not trust the User-Agent alone.

Access and robots.txt

robots.txt behavior is not established by the linked source. Confirm the current policy before relying on an opt-out.

Seeing 403 or 404 responses?

403 means access was denied; 404 means the resource was not found. Compare the public path, request time, edge security event and origin response to find the cause.

Separate intended restrictions and secret-file probes from pages that should work. A User-Agent name alone does not justify allowing a request.

SourcesReviewed 2026-09-14

Identity and purpose are based on these sources. Analytics interpretation and suggested checks are Apostl guidance.

APOSTL Pulse

See MicrosoftPreview in context

See their requests. Find the pages that matter.

See your agent traffic

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