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Gemini Notebook

Q: What is the official user-agent string for Gemini Notebook?

The official user-agent string for Gemini Notebook is: Google-GeminiNotebook . Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Gemini Notebook by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Q: Is Gemini Notebook safe?

Yes, Gemini Notebook is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Google. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Q: Will blocking Gemini Notebook hurt my SEO?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Gemini Notebook does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Gemini Notebook is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Q: How do I block Gemini Notebook in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook Disallow: / This instructs Gemini Notebook not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/ ).

Q: How do I verify if Gemini Notebook is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string Google-GeminiNotebook (case-insensitive: grep -i "Google-GeminiNotebook" /var/log/nginx/access.log ). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

Operated by Google

Scout's quick take

Gemini Notebook 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-GeminiNotebook
Disallow: /

Run a live crawler access test Build a full robots.txt

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: Google-GeminiNotebook
Category:: Google Bots
Operator:: Google
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: developers.google.com

Confirmed by the operator

Google names Google-GeminiNotebook 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 Gemini Notebook?

Gemini Notebook 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 Notebook uses the user-agent token Google-GeminiNotebook. 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 Notebook?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Gemini Notebook does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Gemini Notebook 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.

How to block Gemini Notebook with robots.txt

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

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block Gemini Notebook if ($http_user_agent ~* "Google-GeminiNotebook") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block Gemini Notebook
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Google-GeminiNotebook" 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 Gemini Notebook safe to allow?

Yes, Gemini Notebook is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Google. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate Gemini Notebook requests resolve to Google's domain.

What does Gemini Notebook do?

Understanding Gemini Notebook'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 Notebook in context

Gemini Notebook 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 Gemini Notebook rests on what you want from Google, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Gemini Notebook

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track Google-GeminiNotebook 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?

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

Google crawlers and close alternatives

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

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

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

We first recorded Google-GeminiNotebook on September 22, 2026. Google documents it on developers.google.com, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule Gemini Notebook actually follows

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

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

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

Find the group. Gemini Notebook looks for a group naming Google-GeminiNotebook. 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 Gemini Notebook, 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 Notebook if the file also has a User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook group?

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

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

Often, yes. Gemini Notebook 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-gemininotebook the same as User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook?

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

Should you allow Gemini Notebook? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Gemini Notebook by type of site
If you are...	Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite it	Allow it. Gemini Notebook 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 Gemini Notebook 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 Gemini Notebook on your own site

Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for Google-GeminiNotebook. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
List the Disallow lines in the group Gemini Notebook 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 Gemini Notebook even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
Run our website crawlability test to see how Gemini Notebook and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Gemini Notebook

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

Assuming a robots.txt rule will stop Gemini Notebook. 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 Gemini Notebook 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 Gemini Notebook 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 Notebook from outside after every change.

Spotting Gemini Notebook in your logs

robots.txt says what Gemini Notebook 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-GeminiNotebook" /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-GeminiNotebook" /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 Notebook user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

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

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Gemini Notebook?

The official user-agent string for Gemini Notebook is: Google-GeminiNotebook. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Gemini Notebook by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Is Gemini Notebook safe?

Yes, Gemini Notebook is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Google. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Will blocking Gemini Notebook hurt my SEO?

How do I block Gemini Notebook in robots.txt?

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

User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook
Disallow: /

This instructs Gemini Notebook not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Does Gemini Notebook respect robots.txt?

Gemini Notebook is operated by Google and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.

How do I verify if Gemini Notebook is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string Google-GeminiNotebook (case-insensitive: grep -i "Google-GeminiNotebook" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).