Google-Agent
Google •
Web Crawler
What is Google-Agent?
Google says Google-Agent is used by agents hosted on its infrastructure to navigate the web and perform actions at a user's request. It is not the automatic Googlebot indexer. Google's published mobile and desktop header examples contain a variable Chrome version, so this entry records the stable identifier rather than inventing a literal full header. Google groups it with user-triggered fetchers, which generally ignore robots.txt. Google publishes a dedicated user-triggered-agents IP-range file.
User Agent String
Google-Agent
How to Control Google-Agent
Block Completely
To prevent Google-Agent from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Google-Agent
User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: Google-Agent
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Google-Agent
Verification Method:
Match the source IP to Google's current user-triggered-agents.json ranges; where available, validate Web Bot Auth rather than trusting the header alone.
Match the source IP to Google's current user-triggered-agents.json ranges; where available, validate Web Bot Auth rather than trusting the header alone.
Learn more in the official documentation.
⚠️ AI Training Notice
This bot may collect and use your website content for AI model training. Consider whether you want your content used for this purpose before allowing access.
This bot may collect and use your website content for AI model training. Consider whether you want your content used for this purpose before allowing access.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Google-Agent in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Google\-Agent/i
Strict Pattern
/^Google\-Agent$/
Flexible Pattern
/Google\-Agent[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Google.*Google\-Agent/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Google-Agent
function detect_google_agent() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Google\-Agent/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Google-Agent detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Google-Agent
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_google_agent():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Google\-Agent'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class google_agentMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Google-Agent
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Google-Agent
function detect_google_agent(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Google\-Agent/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Google-Agent detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Google-Agent';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_google_agent);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Google-Agent
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Google\-Agent [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Google\-Agent [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Google\-Agent" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Google\-Agent/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Google-Agent
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_google_agent {
default 0;
~*Google\-Agent 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_google_agent) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_google_agent) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_google_agent) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Limit Access | Protect pricing and inventory data from AI training |
| Blog/News | Consider Blocking | Your content may be used for AI training without compensation |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Selective | Allow for public docs, block for internal docs |
| Corporate Site | Limit | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: Google-Agent
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: Google-Agent
# Blocking AI training bot
Disallow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Google-Agent
Robots.txt Name
Google-Agent
Category
ai
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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