What is Google-Agent? Google's AI crawler
Google-Agent identifies agents hosted on Google's infrastructure that browse the web and take actions when a person asks them to.
52 of the 1662 major websites we measure block Google-Agent in robots.txt (3%), making it number 32 of the 36 AI crawlers we track for how often it is blocked. 27 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.
Key facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | |
| Used for | Agents on Google's infrastructure |
| Type | On-demand fetch. Visits a page because someone asked a question. Several operators say robots.txt may not apply. |
| robots.txt token | Google-Agent |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking Google-Agent does
Google says user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules, because a person asked for the fetch. The figures below show what files state, not what this fetcher does.
How to allow or block Google-Agent
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. It is a stated preference that well-behaved crawlers read, not an enforcement mechanism.
User-agent: Google-Agent Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Agent Allow: /
To see whether your own site lets Google-Agent in, and which rule decides it, run the free AI crawler checker.
Google-Agent user agent string
Google's page doesn't list a full string, so look for Google-Agent in the user agent field of your logs.
How to verify a request is really Google-Agent
Anyone can put a crawler's name in a user agent string, so the name alone proves nothing. We did not find a published IP list or reverse DNS rule from Google.
How to whitelist Google-Agent in a firewall or CDN
robots.txt only states a preference. A firewall, CDN or bot protection service can still refuse the request, and the crawler then gets an error even though robots.txt allows it.
- Check that no group in your robots.txt blocks it, using the rule above.
- Add an allow rule in your firewall or CDN that matches the name in the user agent. Keep the rule narrow, because anyone can copy a name.
- Check your server logs for a 200 response from Google-Agent afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why Google-Agent gets a 403 or 405 error
A 403 means the server refused the request, which usually points to a firewall or bot rule. A 405 means the server refused the request's method, so check any rule that only permits certain methods. A crawler that obeys robots.txt won't request a page it is told to avoid, so an error in your logs points to your server's configuration. To stop it deliberately at the server, this nginx rule returns a 403:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Google-Agent") {
return 403;
}Which sites recently changed their rules for Google-Agent?
None that lasted since 17 August 2026. See the full change log.
Who blocks Google-Agent, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| News publishers | 182 | 20 | 11% |
| Social and media platforms | 115 | 10 | 9% |
| Finance and business media | 94 | 4 | 4% |
| Reference and research | 114 | 4 | 4% |
| Technology media | 126 | 4 | 3% |
| AI companies | 128 | 3 | 2% |
| Government and institutions | 98 | 2 | 2% |
| Developer references | 159 | 1 | 1% |
| E-commerce and retail | 92 | 1 | 1% |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 98 | 1 | 1% |
| SaaS platforms | 196 | 2 | 1% |
| Health publishers | 88 | 0 | 0% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 86 | 0 | 0% |
| Travel | 86 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking Google-Agent
academia.edu, afterpay.com, azcentral.com, barrons.com, cnbc.com, consilium.europa.eu, devclass.com, distill.pub, dn.se, eluniversal.com.mx, facebook.com, flickr.com, fortinet.com, hackernoon.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, instagram.com, jsbin.com, justice.gov, lemonde.fr, linguee.com, lobste.rs, magento.com, marketwatch.com, meta.ai, msnbc.com, nation.africa, netflix.com, news.com.au, nzherald.co.nz, pinterest.com, poe.com, publico.pt, reddit.com, reuters.com, sap.com, sciencedirect.com, semafor.com, techdirt.com, theregister.com, thesun.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, threads.net, todayonline.com, torontosun.com, usatoday.com, vancouversun.com, volkskrant.nl, wordreference.com, wsj.com, x.com, zeit.de.
Sites that allow Google-Agent by name
clickfunnels.com, disneyplus.com, enterprise.com, getyourguide.com, heygen.com, klaviyo.com, omio.com, postman.com, resemble.ai, sbs.com.au.
Other Google crawlers
Google-Extended (Gemini training control), GoogleOther (research and development fetch), Google-CloudVertexBot (Vertex AI on-demand fetch), Google-GeminiNotebook (user-added sources), Googlebot (search indexing), Googlebot-Image (image indexing), Googlebot-Video (video indexing), Googlebot-News (news indexing), Storebot-Google (shopping crawl), Google-InspectionTool (search testing tools), GoogleOther-Image (image fetch for research), GoogleOther-Video (video fetch for research), AdsBot-Google-Mobile (mobile ad quality), AdsBot-Google (ad quality), Mediapartners-Google (ad matching), APIs-Google (API push notifications), Google-CWS (Chrome Web Store checks), FeedFetcher-Google (feed retrieval), GoogleMessages (link preview), Google-Pinpoint (user-added documents), GoogleProducer (publisher feeds), Google-Read-Aloud (read aloud on request), Google-Site-Verification (site verification).
See all 36 AI crawlers, the rule change log or the full study. Being reachable is only the first step: how AI search engines choose what to cite covers the rest.
Cite this data
You are welcome to quote or republish these figures. Please credit IndexHalo with a link to this page (CC BY 4.0). All our datasets are on the data page.
IndexHalo. "Google-Agent block rate across major websites." Measured 12 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/google-agent/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/google-agent/">Google-Agent block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>