GoogleProducer
Google •
Web Crawler
What is GoogleProducer?
Google documents GoogleProducer as the user agent for Publisher Center requests that fetch and process feeds publishers explicitly supplied for Google News landing pages. It is listed among user-triggered fetchers, not as a general search-index crawler. Google's general guidance says these fetchers usually ignore robots.txt; publishers should not confuse this agent with Googlebot-News.
User Agent String
GoogleProducer; (+https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-producer)
How to Control GoogleProducer
Block Completely
To prevent GoogleProducer from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block GoogleProducer
User-agent: GoogleProducer
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: GoogleProducer
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: GoogleProducer
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify GoogleProducer
Verification Method:
Check source addresses against Google's current user-triggered fetcher ranges; the published user-agent can be imitated.
Check source addresses against Google's current user-triggered fetcher ranges; the published user-agent can be imitated.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect GoogleProducer in your application:
Basic Pattern
/GoogleProducer/i
Strict Pattern
/^GoogleProducer; \(\+https\:\/\/developers\.google\.com\/search\/docs\/crawling\-indexing\/google\-producer\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/GoogleProducer[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Google.*GoogleProducer/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for GoogleProducer
function detect_googleproducer() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/GoogleProducer/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('GoogleProducer 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for GoogleProducer
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_googleproducer():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'GoogleProducer'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class googleproducerMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for GoogleProducer
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect GoogleProducer
function detect_googleproducer(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /GoogleProducer/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('GoogleProducer detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'GoogleProducer';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_googleproducer);
# Apache .htaccess rules for GoogleProducer
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} GoogleProducer [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} GoogleProducer [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "GoogleProducer" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /GoogleProducer/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for GoogleProducer
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_googleproducer {
default 0;
~*GoogleProducer 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_googleproducer) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_googleproducer) {
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_googleproducer) {
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 | 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: GoogleProducer
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: GoogleProducer
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: GoogleProducer
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
GoogleProducer
Robots.txt Name
GoogleProducer
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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