Storebot-Google
Google •
Since 2020
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is Storebot-Google?
Storebot-Google is Google's specialized crawler for product and store-related content. It indexes product listings, prices, availability, and other e-commerce data to power Google Shopping and product search results. The bot operates similarly to Googlebot but focuses specifically on structured product data, merchant feeds, and shopping-related content. It respects robots.txt directives and follows Google's standard crawling practices.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 8.0; Pixel 2 Build/OPD3.170816.012; Storebot-Google/1.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/81.0.4044.138 Mobile Safari/537.36
How to Control Storebot-Google
Block Completely
To prevent Storebot-Google from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block Storebot-Google
User-agent: Storebot-Google
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: Storebot-Google
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: Storebot-Google
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify Storebot-Google
Verification Method:
Reverse DNS lookup should resolve to googlebot.com or google.com
Reverse DNS lookup should resolve to googlebot.com or google.com
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect Storebot-Google in your application:
Basic Pattern
/Storebot\-Google/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(Linux; Android 8\.0; Pixel 2 Build/OPD3\.170816\.012; Storebot\-Google/1\.0\) AppleWebKit/537\.36 \(KHTML, like Gecko\) Chrome/81\.0\.4044\.138 Mobile Safari/537\.36$/
Flexible Pattern
/Storebot\-Google[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Google.*Storebot\-Google/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for Storebot-Google
function detect_storebot_google() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/Storebot\\-Google/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('Storebot-Google 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for Storebot-Google
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_storebot_google():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'Storebot-Google'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class StorebotGoogleMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for Storebot-Google
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect Storebot-Google
function detectStorebotGoogle(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /Storebot-Google/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('Storebot-Google detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'Storebot-Google';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectStorebotGoogle);
# Apache .htaccess rules for Storebot-Google
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Storebot\-Google [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Storebot\-Google [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Storebot\-Google" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /Storebot\-Google/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for Storebot-Google
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_storebot_google {
default 0;
~*Storebot\-Google 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_storebot_google) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_storebot_google) {
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_storebot_google) {
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: Storebot-Google
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: Storebot-Google
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: Storebot-Google
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
Storebot-Google
Robots.txt Name
Storebot-Google
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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