# Googlebot

> The classic search crawler. It is also the crawler behind AI Overviews: Google does not run a separate bot for them, which is why the only AI opt-out is the Google-Extended token and not a Googlebot block.

| field | value |
|---|---|
| operator | Google |
| category | Search engines |
| robots.txt token | `Googlebot` |
| user-agent contains | `Googlebot` |
| robots.txt | obeys robots.txt (documented) |
| verify by | published IP ranges |
| published IP ranges | https://developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/googlebot.json |
| prefixes mirrored | 170 IPv4 / 147 IPv6 |
| operator docs | https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-crawlers |
| last reviewed | 2026-09-14 |

## What blocking it costs you

Total. You leave Google Search. Never block this to avoid AI use; use Google-Extended instead.

## Full user-agent string

```
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
```

## Block it

```
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
```

## Allow it

```
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /
```

## Ask this page a question, with one GET

A question about this page, answered by a call you can make right now — no key, no account, no JSON-RPC, nothing to assemble. The query string is already filled in with this page's own subject.

- **How do I prove a request really is Googlebot?**  
  `curl -s 'https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/tools/verification-methods?crawler=googlebot&s=client-dossiers'`  
  The verification method its operator actually publishes — published IP ranges, reverse DNS, or nothing at all — and the mirror of it on this host.
- **Is 192.178.4.0 really Googlebot?**  
  `curl -s 'https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/tools/verify-crawler?ip=192.178.4.0&ua=Googlebot&s=client-dossiers'`  
  That address checked against every prefix this host mirrors. 192.178.4.0 is the first address of 192.178.4.0/27, one of the ranges listed on this page — so the link is a worked example that returns a match. Swap in an address from your own log.

Every parameter above is a value the endpoint reads, not an address it visits: nothing is fetched on your behalf. Called without any parameter, each endpoint returns its own specification instead of an error.

JSON: https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/crawler/googlebot.json · index: https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/llms.txt