Googlebot: what this bot is and how to allow or block it
Googlebot is a search bot from Google: it finds and reads pages so that Gemini & AI Overviews can find your site and cite it in answers. Block it and your site drops out of those answers.
Googlebot User-Agent
This is how Googlebot identifies itself in requests to your site. In robots.txt you only write the token — Googlebot.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
How to allow Googlebot
Add this group to robots.txt at the site root. Close service sections in the same group: a bot with its own group does not read the «User-agent: *» rules.
User-agent: Googlebot Allow: /
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve Googlebot a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.
How to block Googlebot
To block the whole site, add the group below to robots.txt. The rule works for bots that respect robots.txt.
User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /
What happens if you block Googlebot
Gemini & AI Overviews will stop finding and reading your pages: your site will not appear in answers with search, and the assistant will not link to it.
How to check whether Googlebot visits your site
Search the web server logs for the token. The User-Agent string is easy to fake, so to be sure, check the IP address against the ranges if Google publishes them.
grep "Googlebot" /var/log/nginx/access.log
Does your site let Googlebot in
Free 15-second check: we read your robots.txt and request your site as AI bots — you see which ones the server and bot protection let in and which they block.
Questions and answers
Should I block Googlebot?
No, if you want Gemini & AI Overviews to find and recommend your site. Blocking search bots only makes sense for pages that should not appear in answers.
How do I know whether Googlebot visits my site?
Search the web server logs for the token. The User-Agent string is easy to fake, so to be sure, check the IP address against the ranges if Google publishes them.
Is it enough to allow Googlebot in robots.txt?
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve Googlebot a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.