Google-Agent

User agent

Google-Agent

MetricRaven matches this token anywhere in the request's user agent, ignoring case. Operators add version numbers and browser text around it, for example "Google-Agent/1.0".

IP verification

Verified when the user agent and the IP range both match

1. 1User agent

   The request's user agent contains Google-Agent.

2. 2Request IP

   Your server-side tracker sends the IP that made the request.

3. 3Range check

   The IP is compared with the ranges Google publishes, refreshed twice a day.

Range sources

• Google user-triggered agents

  https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/user-triggered-agents.json

Control it in robots.txt

User-agent: Google-Agent
Disallow: /private/

Fetchers that act for a person may not follow robots.txt; block them at your server or firewall if you need to.

Questions

What is Google-Agent?

Agents hosted on Google infrastructure that browse the web and act on a user's request. MetricRaven groups it under AI answers: assistants opening a page because a person asked about it.

How do I verify that a request really comes from Google-Agent?

Check both the user agent and the IP. Requests from Google-Agent contain "Google-Agent" in the user agent and come from the IP ranges Google publishes (https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/user-triggered-agents.json). A request with the name but another IP is likely spoofed.

How do I block or allow Google-Agent?

Add a robots.txt group for "Google-Agent" with the paths to allow or disallow. Fetchers that act for a user may ignore robots.txt; block those at your server or firewall instead.

How can I see when Google-Agent visits my website?

Most crawlers never run JavaScript, so browser analytics miss them. MetricRaven's @metricraven/ai-crawl package reports crawler requests from your server, verifies their IPs against published ranges, and shows which pages each crawler reads.