Googlebot user agent
Operated by Google
Googlebot is Google's main crawler that indexes pages for Google Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode.
The Googlebot bot at a glance
- Googlebot is operated by Google and crawls web pages for a search engine index.
- The robots.txt token for Googlebot is Googlebot.
- Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results.
- Googlebot robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is Googlebot?
Googlebot crawls pages with a smartphone and a desktop user agent to build the Google Search index. Google’s AI features in Search, AI Overviews and AI Mode, use the same index.
Blocking Googlebot removes pages from Google Search and from those AI features. To opt out of Gemini training without touching Search, use the Google-Extended token instead.
Should you block Googlebot?
Allow Googlebot 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
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 is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block Googlebot
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow Googlebot
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep Googlebot out of private areas only
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to Googlebot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Googlebot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to Googlebot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Googlebot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Googlebot")How to verify real Googlebot traffic
Google publishes the IP ranges that Googlebot uses. A request with the Googlebot user agent from an IP outside that list is an impersonator.
Official Googlebot 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 Googlebot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts Googlebot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "Googlebot" 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 user agent string
The full user agent Google publishes for Googlebot. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36Googlebot FAQ
Googlebot identifies itself with the robots.txt token "Googlebot". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Yes. Google states that Googlebot follows robots.txt rules written for the "Googlebot" 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" 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 Googlebot 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 "Googlebot", for example with: grep -i "Googlebot" 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.
