GoogleOther-Image user agent
Operated by Google
GoogleOther-Image is the version of GoogleOther that fetches public image URLs.
The GoogleOther-Image bot at a glance
- GoogleOther-Image is operated by Google and collects public web pages that may be used to train AI models, and fetches pages to power a specific product feature.
- The robots.txt token for GoogleOther-Image is GoogleOther-Image.
- Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings.
- GoogleOther-Image robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Your choice.
What is GoogleOther-Image?
GoogleOther-Image collects images for Google teams outside Search, in the same way GoogleOther collects pages.
Blocking it does not affect Google Images or Google Search.
Should you block GoogleOther-Image?
Blocking GoogleOther-Image is a business decision: it protects your content but can lower how well AI products know your brand.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking keeps your future pages out of that company's training data, so its models may know less about your brand over time. It does not remove you from that company's AI search, which uses a separate bot. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes |
| Recommendation | Your choice |
How to block or allow GoogleOther-Image
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 GoogleOther-Image is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block GoogleOther-Image
User-agent: GoogleOther-Image
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow GoogleOther-Image
User-agent: GoogleOther-Image
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep GoogleOther-Image out of private areas only
User-agent: GoogleOther-Image
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to GoogleOther-Image
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(GoogleOther\-Image)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to GoogleOther-Image
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (GoogleOther\-Image) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "GoogleOther-Image")How to verify real GoogleOther-Image traffic
Google publishes the IP ranges that GoogleOther-Image uses. A request with the GoogleOther-Image user agent from an IP outside that list is an impersonator.
Official GoogleOther-Image IP list (JSON)
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 GoogleOther-Image in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts GoogleOther-Image requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "GoogleOther-Image" 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.
GoogleOther-Image user agent string
The full user agent Google publishes for GoogleOther-Image. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
GoogleOther-Image/1.0GoogleOther-Image FAQ
GoogleOther-Image identifies itself with the robots.txt token "GoogleOther-Image". A typical request header reads: GoogleOther-Image/1.0
Yes. Google states that GoogleOther-Image follows robots.txt rules written for the "GoogleOther-Image" token.
Blocking an AI training crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. Blocking keeps your future pages out of that company's training data, so its models may know less about your brand over time. It does not remove you from that company's AI search, which uses a separate bot.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: GoogleOther-Image" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Google publishes the IP ranges GoogleOther-Image uses. Check the request IP against that list; a matching user agent from any other IP is an impersonator.
Search your server access log for "GoogleOther-Image", for example with: grep -i "GoogleOther-Image" 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.
