Safe Official docs Google Bots

Google-Agent

Q: What is the official user-agent string for Google-Agent?

Google-Agent has two user-agent strings: Mobile: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent) Desktop: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36 The W.X.Y.Z is replaced with the actual Chrome version number.

Q: Is Google-Agent safe?

Yes, Google-Agent is a safe and legitimate bot operated by Google. It only acts when triggered by a real user via products like Project Mariner. It's documented on Google's official crawlers page and uses verifiable IP ranges.

Q: Will blocking Google-Agent hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Google-Agent does not affect your rankings in Google or any other search engine. It's a user-triggered agentic bot, not a search indexer. However, blocking it prevents Google AI agents from completing user-requested tasks on your site.

Q: What is the difference between Google-Agent and Googlebot?

Googlebot is Google's search indexing crawler - it crawls pages to build Google's search index. Blocking it removes you from Google Search. Google-Agent is a user-triggered agentic bot - it navigates your site and takes actions (filling forms, clicking buttons) on behalf of users using AI products like Project Mariner. Blocking it has zero SEO impact but prevents AI-assisted user interactions.

Operated by Google

Scout's quick take

Google-Agent visits a page only when a person asks Google's assistant to open it. It is not a background crawler. Heads up: Google says robots.txt may not apply to it, so use a firewall rule if you need it stopped.

# Block only if you really mean to
User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /

Test AI crawler access Build a full robots.txt

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: Google-Agent
Category:: Google Bots
Operator:: Google
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 3/10
Official docs:: developers.google.com

Confirmed by the operator

Google names Google-Agent on its own documentation page, linked above. The token, purpose and robots.txt behaviour on this profile come from that page, re-checked on October 19, 2026.

What is Google-Agent?

Google-Agent is Google's new user-triggered agentic crawler that navigates websites and performs actions (like filling forms, clicking buttons, and browsing pages) on behalf of users via products like Project Mariner.
Unlike traditional crawlers that simply index content, Google-Agent is an agentic bot - it takes real actions on your site at the direction of a human user. It can fill out forms, navigate multi-step workflows, and interact with your site's UI elements. Each interaction creates a log event in your server logs, giving you data on how Google's AI agents engage with your website.
Why this matters for WebMCP: If you see significant Google-Agent traffic in your logs, it's a direct data point showing that users are sending AI agents to interact with your site. This makes implementing WebMCP (Machine-Callable Protocols) a higher priority - you'll want structured endpoints that AI agents can use efficiently.
Google-Agent uses IP ranges from user-triggered-agents.json and comes in both mobile and desktop variants:
• Mobile: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent)
• Desktop: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36

What happens if you block Google-Agent?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Google-Agent does not affect your rankings in Google or any other search engine. Google-Agent is a user-triggered agentic bot, not a search indexer. However, blocking it means Google's AI agents (like Project Mariner) won't be able to complete tasks on your site when users request them. This could impact user experience for people using Google's AI assistant products.
Key consideration: If Google-Agent shows high activity in your logs, it means users are actively sending AI agents to your site. Blocking it removes a channel of user engagement. Consider implementing WebMCP instead to give AI agents structured ways to interact with your site.

Safe to allow. Provides valuable data on AI agent interactions with your site.

How to block Google-Agent with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: Google-Agent</code> - This is a user-triggered fetcher. Unlike traditional crawlers, it acts on behalf of real users via products like Project Mariner. Blocking it won't affect SEO, but it may prevent Google's AI agents from completing user-requested tasks on your site.

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: Google-Agent
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /checkout/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Block Google-Agent
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Google-Agent") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Block Google-Agent
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Google-Agent" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Google-Agent safe to allow?

Yes, Google-Agent is a safe and legitimate bot operated by Google. It is a user-triggered fetcher that only acts when a real user requests an AI agent to interact with your site (e.g., via Project Mariner). It is documented in Google's official crawlers page and uses verifiable IP ranges from user-triggered-agents.json.
Strategic value: Allowing Google-Agent gives you real data on how AI agents are interacting with your site. If you see significant traffic, it's a strong signal that implementing WebMCP should be a priority. Use your AI crawler checker free tool to monitor its access.

Verify by checking IP against Google's user-triggered-agents.json IP range list.

What does Google-Agent do?

Google-Agent is fundamentally different from traditional crawlers. It's an agentic bot that takes actions on your site.

Navigates your site on behalf of users who request AI assistance (Project Mariner)
Fills out forms and completes multi-step workflows at user direction
Clicks buttons, follows links, and interacts with UI elements
Creates server log events that let you measure AI agent engagement
Uses IP ranges from user-triggered-agents.json for verification
Does NOT index content or affect search rankings
Provides data showing how important WebMCP implementation is for your site

Google-Agent in context

Google-Agent 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 Google crawlers and ranks it Tier 2, important crawlers from established AI and search operators. 2 of the 24 Google crawlers in our database share this tier.

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

How site owners treat Google-Agent

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track Google-Agent as a named token, so we do not publish an adoption figure for it. If you run a large site, your own logs are the best evidence of how often it visits.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Google-Agent's operator says it does not follow robots.txt for these requests, so a robots.txt rule will not stop Google-Agent. Use a firewall, CDN or server rule if you need to block it.

Google crawlers and close alternatives

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

Google-Agent: 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-CloudVertexBot: Google Vertex AI, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 3)
Google-CWS: Chrome Web Store Fetcher, checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 4)

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

No other crawler in our Google crawlers category has exactly the same purpose, which makes Google-Agent an unusual case: decide about it on its own merits.

We first recorded Google-Agent on March 25, 2026. Google documents it on developers.google.com, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule Google-Agent actually follows

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

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /drafts/

Find the group. Google-Agent looks for a group naming Google-Agent. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
The surprise. /private/ is open to Google-Agent, 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 Google-Agent if the file also has a User-agent: Google-Agent group?

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

Test yourself: will blocking Google-Agent remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Google-Agent 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-agent the same as User-agent: Google-Agent?

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

Should you allow Google-Agent? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Google-Agent by type of site
If you are...	Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite it	Allow it. Google-Agent fetches pages for answers, so blocking it can remove you from them.
You license content and want to stop AI training	Blocking it does not stop training, because Google-Agent is a user-triggered agent. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shop	Allow it unless it is overloading your servers.
Your server is under load from bots	Rate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Google-Agent on your own site

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

Common mistakes with Google-Agent

The errors we see most often with Google-Agent in the files and firewalls we test:

Assuming a robots.txt rule will stop Google-Agent. User-triggered fetches act for a person, and some operators say robots.txt may not apply to them. Check the operator's statement above.
Blocking Google-Agent 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.
Counting Google-Agent 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 Google-Agent from outside after every change.

Spotting Google-Agent in your logs

robots.txt says what Google-Agent 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-Agent" /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-Agent" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

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

Google-Agent: compare each address with the ranges at developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/user-triggered-agents.json. A request claiming to be Google-Agent from outside them is not genuine.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Google-Agent?

Google-Agent has two user-agent strings:
Mobile:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent)

Desktop:

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Google-Agent; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-agent) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36

The W.X.Y.Z is replaced with the actual Chrome version number.

Is Google-Agent safe?

Yes, Google-Agent is a safe and legitimate bot operated by Google. It only acts when triggered by a real user via products like Project Mariner. It's documented on Google's official crawlers page and uses verifiable IP ranges.

Will blocking Google-Agent hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Google-Agent does not affect your rankings in Google or any other search engine. It's a user-triggered agentic bot, not a search indexer. However, blocking it prevents Google AI agents from completing user-requested tasks on your site.

How do I block Google-Agent in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /

This instructs Google-Agent not to perform any agentic actions on your site. For partial blocking (e.g., protect checkout but allow browsing):

User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /account/
Allow: /

What is the difference between Google-Agent and Googlebot?

Googlebot is Google's search indexing crawler - it crawls pages to build Google's search index. Blocking it removes you from Google Search.
Google-Agent is a user-triggered agentic bot - it navigates your site and takes actions (filling forms, clicking buttons) on behalf of users using AI products like Project Mariner. Blocking it has zero SEO impact but prevents AI-assisted user interactions.

What is Project Mariner?

Project Mariner is Google's AI agent product that uses Google-Agent to browse the web and perform tasks on behalf of users. When a user asks Project Mariner to do something on a website (like fill a form or find information), Google-Agent is the bot that actually visits and interacts with the site.

How does Google-Agent relate to WebMCP?

If Google-Agent has a large number of interactions with your site, it means users are sending AI agents to interact with your content. This is a direct data point showing you should implement WebMCP (Machine-Callable Protocols) - structured endpoints that let AI agents interact with your site more efficiently. Monitor Google-Agent traffic in your logs to prioritize WebMCP implementation.

How do I verify Google-Agent in my server logs?

Search your web server access logs for Google-Agent:

grep -i "Google-Agent" /var/log/nginx/access.log

You can verify legitimate requests by checking the source IP against Google's user-triggered-agents.json IP range list. Google-Agent interactions create distinct log events for each agentic action (form fill, navigation, etc.).

Does Google-Agent respect robots.txt?

Yes - Google-Agent respects robots.txt directives. You can control which parts of your site it can interact with using standard robots.txt rules with User-agent: Google-Agent.

How often does Google-Agent crawl my site?

Google-Agent is user-triggered, meaning it only visits your site when a real user asks Google's AI (like Project Mariner) to perform a task on your site. Traffic volume depends on how many users request AI agent interactions with your website. Monitor your server logs to track actual visit patterns.