Googlebot
Google's main search crawler — and, indirectly, the crawler behind AI Overviews, because those are generated from the index it builds.
At a glance
- Operator
- Category
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Search engine
A classic search crawler whose index also feeds that company's AI answers. Blocking it removes you from both the blue links and the AI summaries above them.
- User-Agent token
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Googlebot - robots.txt token
Googlebot- Respects robots.txt
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Documented as compliant
Googlebot is listed here so you can see it in your crawl analytics, not so you can block it. Whether Google may use what it fetched for generative AI is a separate decision, controlled by the Google-Extended token above.
- Operator docs
- developers.google.com
What Googlebot does
Should you block Googlebot?
Our take
Don't. Blocking Googlebot removes you from Google altogether — the ordinary results and the AI answers built on top of them. If what you actually want is to stay in search while staying out of model training, that is a separate token, and it's the one to reach for. MetaPilot shows Googlebot in your crawler analytics but won't write a block for it from the dashboard.
The robots.txt rules for Googlebot
Add the rule below to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain
(yourdomain.com/robots.txt). Use the Googlebot token rather than the raw
User-Agent string, and repeat the rule on every subdomain you want covered.
New to the file? Read what robots.txt is first.
The allow rule is the one you want. The disallow variant is documented below for completeness, but it removes your site from Google entirely. Don't paste it unless that is genuinely what you intend.
Allow Googlebot explicitly
User-agent: Googlebot Allow: /
Block Googlebot — removes you from Google
User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /
A note on what this does and doesn't do. robots.txt is a request, not a lock —
it works because well-behaved crawlers choose to read it. It also isn't retroactive: anything already
fetched stays fetched. If you need a hard stop, block at your firewall or CDN as well.
How MetaPilot handles Googlebot
MetaPilot detects Googlebot in your edge logs, so you see its real hits on your
real pages rather than a guess: how often it visits, which URLs it takes, and how that trend moves week to
week. From the same screen you flip Googlebot between allow and deny with one click —
MetaPilot rewrites only its own managed section of your
robots.txt and serves it at the edge, so the change is live on the crawler's next visit with
no deploy and no touching your own rules.
See AI-crawler analytics or follow the guide to
monitor and control AI crawlers.
Related crawlers
Google-InspectionTool
The fetcher behind your own Search Console testing tools — URL Inspection and the Rich Results Test.
Googlebot-Image
Googlebot's image-fetching counterpart, which populates Google Images.
Googlebot-News
A robots.txt token for Google News, not a separate crawler — the fetching is done by Googlebot.
Googlebot-Video
Googlebot's video-fetching counterpart, which populates Google's video results.
FAQ
What is Googlebot?
Google's main search crawler — and, indirectly, the crawler behind AI Overviews, because those are generated from the index it builds.
Googlebot fetches pages to build the Google Search index, crawling as both a smartphone and a desktop client from the same token. It is the single most consequential visit your site receives. The same index is what AI Overviews and Gemini grounding draw on, which is why an AI-visibility question so often turns out to be a plain crawlability question underneath.
Does Googlebot respect robots.txt?
Yes — Google documents that Googlebot honours robots.txt. A Disallow for the Googlebot token is respected.
Googlebot is listed here so you can see it in your crawl analytics, not so you can block it. Whether Google may use what it fetched for generative AI is a separate decision, controlled by the Google-Extended token above.
Should I block Googlebot?
Almost certainly not. Disallowing Googlebot removes you from Google's search results, and because those same results feed Google's AI answers, you lose both at once.
If you want to stay in search but out of generative AI, that is a different token — see the training opt-out for Google in the related crawlers below. MetaPilot will not write a block for Googlebot from the dashboard for this reason.
Will blocking Googlebot hurt my traffic?
Blocking Googlebot removes you from Google Search. Not "hurts your ranking" — removes. It also removes you from AI Overviews, since those are assembled from the index Googlebot fills. There is essentially no situation where a site wants this, which is why MetaPilot will not write that rule for you.
Ask an AI whether to block Googlebot