Googlebot-News user agent
Operated by Google
Googlebot-News is the robots.txt token that controls how news content appears in Google News.
The Googlebot-News bot at a glance
- Googlebot-News is operated by Google and crawls web pages for a search engine index.
- The robots.txt token for Googlebot-News is Googlebot-News.
- Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results.
- Googlebot-News robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is Googlebot-News?
Googlebot-News has no separate user agent string; Google crawls with the normal Googlebot user agents and applies Googlebot-News rules to Google News.
Publishers use it to keep sections out of Google News while staying in Google Search.
Should you block Googlebot-News?
Allow Googlebot-News unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow Googlebot-News
Put the robots.txt rule in the file at the root of every domain and subdomain, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. The token Googlebot-News is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block Googlebot-News
User-agent: Googlebot-News
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow Googlebot-News
User-agent: Googlebot-News
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep Googlebot-News out of private areas only
User-agent: Googlebot-News
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to Googlebot-News
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Googlebot\-News)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to Googlebot-News
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Googlebot\-News) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Googlebot-News")How to verify real Googlebot-News traffic
Reverse DNS check: look up the request IP, confirm the hostname ends in googlebot.com, then look up that hostname and confirm it returns the same IP.
# 1. Reverse lookup: the hostname must end in googlebot.com
host REQUEST_IP
# 2. Forward lookup: must return the same REQUEST_IP
host HOSTNAME_FROM_STEP_1How to find Googlebot-News in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts Googlebot-News requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "Googlebot-News" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20For a full report per AI bot, upload the log to the AI Log File Analyzer, a free tool by Justin Hà.
Googlebot-News FAQ
Googlebot-News uses the robots.txt token "Googlebot-News". Google does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
Yes. Google states that Googlebot-News follows robots.txt rules written for the "Googlebot-News" token.
Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: Googlebot-News" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Run a reverse DNS lookup on the request IP; a real Googlebot-News request resolves to googlebot.com, and a forward lookup of that hostname returns the same IP.
Search your server access log for "Googlebot-News", for example with: grep -i "Googlebot-News" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Google crawler documentation. Last reviewed by Justin Hà.
See which of these bots actually reach your website
The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers in your server log, for free. The GEO Technical Package sets up robots.txt, llms.txt and crawler access for AI search.
