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Googlebot-Video

Google Since 2007
Search Respects robots.txt
#search #google #video #crawler
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What is Googlebot-Video?

Googlebot-Video is Google's specialized crawler for discovering and indexing video content across the web. This bot identifies video files, analyzes video metadata, thumbnails, and surrounding content to make videos discoverable in Google Search and Google Videos. It supports various video formats and protocols, including embedded videos and video sitemaps. The crawler plays a crucial role in Google's video search ecosystem, helping users find relevant video content. Website owners can optimize for Googlebot-Video by providing structured data, video sitemaps, and ensuring video content is accessible.

User Agent String

Googlebot-Video/1.0

How to Control Googlebot-Video

Block Completely

To prevent Googlebot-Video from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:

# Block Googlebot-Video User-agent: Googlebot-Video Disallow: /

Block Specific Directories

To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:

User-agent: Googlebot-Video 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: Googlebot-Video Crawl-delay: 10

How to Verify Googlebot-Video

Verification Method:
Same verification as standard Googlebot

Learn more in the official documentation.

Detection Patterns

Multiple ways to detect Googlebot-Video in your application:

Basic Pattern

/Googlebot\-Video/i

Strict Pattern

/^Googlebot\-Video/1\.0$/

Flexible Pattern

/Googlebot\-Video[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i

Vendor Match

/.*Google.*Googlebot\-Video/i

Implementation Examples

// PHP Detection for Googlebot-Video function detect_googlebot_video() { $user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? ''; $pattern = '/Googlebot\\-Video/i'; if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) { // Log the detection error_log('Googlebot-Video 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html'); exit; } return true; } return false; }
# Python/Flask Detection for Googlebot-Video import re from flask import request, make_responsedef detect_googlebot_video(): user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '') pattern = r'Googlebot-Video' if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE): # Create response with caching response = make_response() response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600' response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive' return True return False# Django Middleware class GooglebotVideoMiddleware: def __init__(self, get_response): self.get_response = get_response def __call__(self, request): if self.detect_bot(request): # Handle bot traffic pass return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Googlebot-Video const express = require('express'); const app = express();// Middleware to detect Googlebot-Video function detectGooglebotVideo(req, res, next) { const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || ''; const pattern = /Googlebot-Video/i; if (pattern.test(userAgent)) { // Log bot detection console.log('Googlebot-Video detected from IP:', req.ip); // Set cache headers res.set({ 'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600', 'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive' }); // Mark request as bot req.isBot = true; req.botName = 'Googlebot-Video'; } next(); }app.use(detectGooglebotVideo);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Googlebot-Video# Block completely RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Googlebot\-Video [NC] RewriteRule .* - [F,L]# Or redirect to a static version RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Googlebot\-Video [NC] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]# Or set environment variable for PHP SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Googlebot\-Video" is_bot=1# Add cache headers for this bot <If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Googlebot\-Video/i"> Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600" Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive" </If>
# Nginx configuration for Googlebot-Video# Map user agent to variable map $http_user_agent $is_googlebot_video { default 0; ~*Googlebot\-Video 1; }server { # Block the bot completely if ($is_googlebot_video) { return 403; } # Or serve cached content location / { if ($is_googlebot_video) { 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_googlebot_video) { 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 TypeRecommendationReasoning
E-commerce Allow Essential for product visibility in search results
Blog/News Allow Increases content reach and discoverability
SaaS Application Block No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources
Documentation Allow Improves documentation discoverability for developers
Corporate Site Allow Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets

Advanced robots.txt Configurations

E-commerce Site Configuration

User-agent: Googlebot-Video 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: Googlebot-Video Crawl-delay: 10 Disallow: /wp-admin/ Disallow: /drafts/ Disallow: /preview/ Disallow: /*?replytocom= Allow: /

SaaS/Application Configuration

User-agent: Googlebot-Video Disallow: /app/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /dashboard/ Disallow: /settings/ Allow: / Allow: /pricing/ Allow: /features/ Allow: /docs/

Quick Reference

User Agent Match

Googlebot-Video

Robots.txt Name

Googlebot-Video

Category

search

Respects robots.txt

Yes
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