What is Storebot-Google? Google's search crawler
Storebot-Google is the crawler Google says crawls for all of Google's shopping surfaces.
25 of the 1662 major websites we measure block Storebot-Google in robots.txt (2%). 30 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 | Google Shopping |
| Type | Search engine. Builds a search engine's index. Listed here because people look it up beside AI crawlers. It isn't counted in the AI crawler figures. |
| robots.txt token | Storebot-Google |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking Storebot-Google does
Google says its common crawlers always obey robots.txt, and that a crawler uses the most specific group that names it, or the * group when none does. Google's own example is Storebot-Google following the * group when no group names it.
How to allow or block Storebot-Google
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: Storebot-Google Disallow: /
User-agent: Storebot-Google Allow: /
Storebot-Google user agent string
Google's page doesn't list a full string, so look for Storebot-Google in the user agent field of your logs.
How to verify a request is really Storebot-Google
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 Storebot-Google 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 Storebot-Google afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why Storebot-Google 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 ~* "Storebot-Google") {
return 403;
}Who blocks Storebot-Google, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social and media platforms | 115 | 8 | 7% |
| Reference and research | 114 | 4 | 4% |
| AI companies | 128 | 3 | 2% |
| News publishers | 182 | 3 | 2% |
| Technology media | 126 | 3 | 2% |
| Finance and business media | 94 | 1 | 1% |
| Government and institutions | 98 | 1 | 1% |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 98 | 1 | 1% |
| SaaS platforms | 196 | 1 | 1% |
| Developer references | 159 | 0 | 0% |
| E-commerce and retail | 92 | 0 | 0% |
| Health publishers | 88 | 0 | 0% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 86 | 0 | 0% |
| Travel | 86 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking Storebot-Google
academia.edu, afterpay.com, consilium.europa.eu, devclass.com, distill.pub, facebook.com, flickr.com, fortinet.com, hackernoon.com, instagram.com, linguee.com, lobste.rs, magento.com, meta.ai, netflix.com, poe.com, reddit.com, sciencedirect.com, theregister.com, thesun.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, threads.net, todayonline.com, wordreference.com, x.com.
Sites that allow Storebot-Google by name
architecturaldigest.com, barrons.com, bonappetit.com, cntraveler.com, disneyplus.com, eluniversal.com.mx, epicurious.com, fentybeauty.com, flipkart.com, gq.com, hertz.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, marketwatch.com, mediamarkt.de, news.com.au, newyorker.com, pinterest.com, pitchfork.com, reuters.com, sagepub.com, sap.com, self.com, slate.com, ulta.com, vanityfair.com, vogue.com, wired.com, wsj.com, zeit.de.
Other Google crawlers
Google-Extended (Gemini training control), GoogleOther (research and development fetch), Google-CloudVertexBot (Vertex AI on-demand fetch), Google-Agent (agents acting for users), Google-GeminiNotebook (user-added sources), Googlebot (search indexing), Googlebot-Image (image indexing), Googlebot-Video (video indexing), Googlebot-News (news indexing), 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. "Storebot-Google block rate across major websites." Measured 12 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/storebot-google/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/storebot-google/">Storebot-Google block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>