GoogleOther
Google •
Since 2023
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Official Docs
What is GoogleOther?
GoogleOther is a generic crawler used by various Google product teams for publicly accessible web crawling outside of Google Search. Introduced to provide transparency about Google's diverse crawling activities, this bot represents Google's R&D teams, product development, and other initiatives that need web data. The crawler might be used for research projects, new product development, or experimental features. By using GoogleOther, Google provides website owners with visibility into non-search related crawling while maintaining the ability to control access through robots.txt.
User Agent String
GoogleOther
How to Control GoogleOther
Block Completely
To prevent GoogleOther from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block GoogleOther
User-agent: GoogleOther
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: GoogleOther
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: GoogleOther
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify GoogleOther
Verification Method:
Same verification as Googlebot
Same verification as Googlebot
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect GoogleOther in your application:
Basic Pattern
/GoogleOther/i
Strict Pattern
/^GoogleOther$/
Flexible Pattern
/GoogleOther[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Google.*GoogleOther/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for GoogleOther
function detect_googleother() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/GoogleOther/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('GoogleOther 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for GoogleOther
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_googleother():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'GoogleOther'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class GoogleOtherMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for GoogleOther
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect GoogleOther
function detectGoogleOther(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /GoogleOther/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('GoogleOther detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'GoogleOther';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectGoogleOther);
# Apache .htaccess rules for GoogleOther
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} GoogleOther [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} GoogleOther [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "GoogleOther" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /GoogleOther/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for GoogleOther
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_googleother {
default 0;
~*GoogleOther 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_googleother) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_googleother) {
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_googleother) {
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 | Optional | Evaluate based on bandwidth usage vs. benefits |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| 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: GoogleOther
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: GoogleOther
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: GoogleOther
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
GoogleOther
Robots.txt Name
GoogleOther
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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