What is Google-Extended?
Google-Extended is a robots.txt control token, not a crawler. Google says it manages whether content Google crawls from your site may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. It has no user agent string of its own: the crawling is done by existing Google crawlers.
Last verified 2026-09-30 against the operator's documentation. All bots
Google-Extended at a glance
- Operator
- Type
- AI robots.txt control tokens
- Purpose
- A robots.txt token that controls Gemini training and grounding use.
- robots.txt token
Google-Extended- How to verify
- There is nothing to verify: no Google crawler sends Google-Extended as its user agent. A request that does is not from Google.
- Operator documentation
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers
How often is Google-Extended impersonated?
No real crawler sends Google-Extended as its user agent, so every request that claims it is fake; there is nothing to verify.
This directory measures requests between 3 July 2026 and 28 September 2026. The fake crawler report covers its own, earlier window (late June to 21 September 2026), so its figures differ from the ones here. Read it for the method.
Have a request that claims to be Google-Extended? Check its IP address.
Should you block Google-Extended?
- Allow it if
- you are content for Gemini training and grounding to use your pages.
- Block it if
- you want to stay in Google Search but opt out of Gemini training and grounding.
- What blocking changes
- Google may not use your content to train future Gemini models or for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. Google Search is unaffected.
To block it, add this group to your robots.txt. Google says Google-Extended does not affect inclusion in Google Search and is not a ranking signal.
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /robots.txt only asks. It does nothing against a client that ignores it or only pretends to be Google-Extended. Stopping those takes verification at your edge.
Google-Extended: common questions
See which bots reach your site, and which of them are who they claim to be.
What is Google-Extended?
Google-Extended is a robots.txt control token, not a crawler. Google says it manages whether content Google crawls from your site may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. It has no user agent string of its own: the crawling is done by existing Google crawlers.
How do I verify that a request is really Google-Extended?
There is nothing to verify: no Google crawler sends Google-Extended as its user agent. A request that does is not from Google. The user agent alone proves nothing: any client can send it.
How do I block Google-Extended in robots.txt?
Add a group for User-agent: Google-Extended with Disallow: /. Google says Google-Extended does not affect inclusion in Google Search and is not a ranking signal. robots.txt only asks. A client that ignores it, or pretends to be Google-Extended, has to be stopped at your edge.
What happens if I block Google-Extended?
Google may not use your content to train future Gemini models or for grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. Google Search is unaffected.
Related bots
- Googlebot (Google): Crawls pages for Google Search, Images, Video, News and Discover.
- Googlebot-Image (Google): Crawls images for Google Images and image features in Search.
- Storebot-Google (Google): Crawls product and store pages for Google Shopping.
- AdsBot-Google (Google): Checks the quality of ad landing pages for Google Ads.
- Google-InspectionTool (Google): Fetches pages for Search Console URL inspection and the Rich Results Test.
- Google-CloudVertexBot (Google): Crawls sites whose owners asked for it when building Vertex AI Agents.