Safe Reported AI & LLM Bots

Gemini CLI

Operated by Google

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
Google-Gemini-CLI
Category:
AI & LLM Bots
Operator:
Google
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
None published by Google
Evidence:
Verified by AI Crawler Check: in 8 top-10k robots.txt files

Reported, not operator documented

Google has not published a crawler page that names Google-Gemini-CLI. It is listed here on our own evidence. Verified by AI Crawler Check: 8 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 carry a rule for Google-Gemini-CLI, so site owners treat it as a real crawler name (how we measure this). That proves the spelling is in use, not who sends it. Reported Gemini CLI token. Not on Google's published crawler lists.

What that means for you: the Google-Gemini-CLI rule on this page is the best available spelling, but Google has made no statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance. Treat a Google-Gemini-CLI request in your logs as a clue, not proof of who sent it, and add a firewall rule if that traffic matters to you. If the operator publishes documentation, this profile moves to Official docs.

What is Gemini CLI?

Gemini CLI is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Google. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Google's assistant.

Gemini CLI is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Google. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Google's assistant.
Gemini CLI uses the user-agent token Google-Gemini-CLI. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Gemini CLI?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Gemini CLI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Gemini CLI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

Want to see whether Gemini CLI actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?

How to block Gemini CLI with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Gemini CLI if ($http_user_agent ~* "Google-Gemini-CLI") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Gemini CLI SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Google-Gemini-CLI" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Gemini CLI safe to allow?

Gemini CLI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Google has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.
Google publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern for Gemini CLI, so the user-agent string cannot be verified. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.

What does Gemini CLI do?

Understanding Gemini CLI's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Fetches a page only when a user asks an AI assistant to read it
  • Summarizes or extracts the URL the user provided
  • Triggered by real user intent, not bulk crawling
  • Low traffic volume compared with training crawlers
  • Blocking it prevents users from pulling your content into the assistant

Gemini CLI in context

Gemini CLI is a user-triggered agent operated by Google. In plain terms, it fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it. Our database files it under AI and LLM crawlers and ranks it Tier 2, important crawlers from established AI and search operators. 74 of the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database share this tier.

Its safety rating is safe and its blocking impact is low. So the decision about Gemini CLI rests on what you want from Google, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Gemini CLI

In our own scan of the Tranco top 10,000 (5,583 valid robots.txt files), 8 files (0.1%) name Google-Gemini-CLI in a User-agent line. That shows site owners treat the token as a real crawler worth a rule. It does not, on its own, prove who operates it.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Gemini CLI's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the Gemini CLI rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.

Google crawlers and close alternatives

Gemini CLI is one of 32 Google crawlers in our database. A User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI group controls Gemini CLI only; the other Google tokens below need their own lines.

  • Google-Gemini-CLI: this crawler (Tier 2)
  • AdsBot-Google: Google Ads Quality (Desktop), checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 3)
  • AdsBot-Google-Mobile: Google Ads Quality (Mobile), checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 3)
  • APIs-Google: APIs-Google, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 3)
  • Chrome-Lighthouse: Lighthouse Audit, checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 4)
  • FeedFetcher-Google: Google Feed Fetcher, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
  • Gemini-Deep-Research: Gemini-Deep-Research, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 3)
  • Google-Agent: Google Agent (Project Mariner), fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 2)
  • Google-CloudVertexBot: Google Vertex AI, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 3)

To give Gemini CLI the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Gemini CLI differently, give it its own group.

Other AI and LLM crawlers that do the same job (fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it) include ChatGPT Agent from OpenAI, ChatGPT Operator from OpenAI, ChatGPT-User from OpenAI, ChatGPT-User/2.0 from OpenAI, Claude-SearchBot from Anthropic, Claude-User from Anthropic. Deciding about Gemini CLI is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded Google-Gemini-CLI on June 18, 2026. We could not find a page where Google names it, so treat the token as reported rather than documented.

Which rule Gemini CLI actually follows

Gemini CLI reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names Google-Gemini-CLI, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. Gemini CLI looks for a group naming Google-Gemini-CLI. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
  2. Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
  3. The surprise. /private/ is open to Gemini CLI, because that rule lives in the * group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeat Disallow: /private/ inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Gemini CLI if the file also has a User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI group?

No. Once a group names it, Gemini CLI reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.

Test yourself: will blocking Gemini CLI remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Gemini CLI is a user-triggered agent, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: google-gemini-cli the same as User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI?

Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.

Should you allow Gemini CLI? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Gemini CLI by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itAllow it. Gemini CLI fetches pages for answers, so blocking it can remove you from them.
You license content and want to stop AI trainingBlocking it does not stop training, because Gemini CLI is a user-triggered agent. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shopAllow it on product and category pages, which are the pages shoppers ask assistants about.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Gemini CLI on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for Google-Gemini-CLI. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group Gemini CLI follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, and Allow wins a tie.
  3. Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Gemini CLI even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our AI crawler access test to see how Gemini CLI and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Gemini CLI

The errors we see most often with Gemini CLI in the files and firewalls we test:

  1. Assuming a robots.txt rule will stop Gemini CLI. User-triggered fetches act for a person, and some operators say robots.txt may not apply to them. Check the operator's statement above.
  2. Blocking Gemini CLI as if it were a bulk crawler. It fetches one page because a person asked; blocking it means that person's assistant cannot read your page.
  3. Counting Gemini CLI visits as crawl volume. Each request maps to a real user question, which makes the paths it requests a useful signal of what people ask about you.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Gemini CLI from outside after every change.

Spotting Gemini CLI in your logs

robots.txt says what Gemini CLI may do; your access logs show what it actually did.

Count requests

On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):

grep -iE "Google-Gemini-CLI" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "Google-Gemini-CLI" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the Gemini CLI user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

  • Google-Gemini-CLI: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Gemini CLI request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What user-agent string does Gemini CLI use?
Gemini CLI is reported to identify itself with Google-Gemini-CLI. Evidence that the spelling is in real use comes from our own robots.txt study: 8 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 name it (fetched October 20, 2026), not from Google, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.
Is Gemini CLI safe?
Gemini CLI is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Google has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.
Will blocking Gemini CLI hurt my SEO?
✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Gemini CLI does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Gemini CLI is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
How do I block Gemini CLI in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: Google-Gemini-CLI
Disallow: /

This instructs Gemini CLI not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).
Does Gemini CLI respect robots.txt?
Not documented. Google has published no statement that Gemini CLI reads robots.txt. A rule for Google-Gemini-CLI will stop a client that chooses to honour it; for enforcement, add a firewall or CDN rule as well.
How do I verify if Gemini CLI is crawling my site?
Search your access logs for Google-Gemini-CLI (for example grep -i "Google-Gemini-CLI" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that Google sent it.

Related Bots

WhatsApp us