AdsBot-Google-Mobile (Google): what it is and how to allow or block it
Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on
AdsBot-Google-Mobile is Google's crawler for mobile Google Ads landing pages. Verify it by reverse DNS or Google's IP list; it skips User-agent: *, so block it by name. Its robots.txt token is AdsBot-Google-Mobile.
Facts
- Operator
- Category
- Special-purpose crawler
- robots.txt token
AdsBot-Google-Mobile
- Honors robots.txt?
- Yes, when named (ignores *), per Google. Google says AdsBot-Google-Mobile ignores the global User-agent: * group, so only a group that names it applies.
- User-agent example
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; AdsBot-Google-Mobile; +http://www.google.com/mobile/adsbot.html)
- Official source
- Google: List of special-case crawlers
- Published IP ranges
- https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/special-crawlers.json
- Compared with the source
What it is used for
Per Google, crawling preferences addressed to AdsBot-Google-Mobile affect Google Ads' ability to check web page ad quality. It identifies as an Android Chrome browser and files among Google's special-case crawlers.
Not the crawler behind a search index. What blocking it changes is specific to its tool, so read the next section.
What happens if you block it
Per Google, a rule for AdsBot-Google-Mobile affects Google Ads' ability to check the quality of your mobile pages. Search indexing is done by Googlebot, which has its own token.
Google lists an older iPhone variant of this crawler as retired; the current user agent is the Android one shown here. W.X.Y.Z stands for the Chrome version.
Is it really AdsBot-Google-Mobile?
Anyone can send AdsBot-Google-Mobile as a user agent, so a log line proves nothing by itself. The way to tell is the requesting IP address.
- Compare the IP address with the Google: published IP ranges. A request from outside those ranges is not the operator's crawler.
- Google documents reverse DNS names of the form rate-limited-proxy-***-***-***-***.google.com for its special-case crawlers, to be confirmed by a forward lookup.
- Guide: Googlebot and robots.txt: the token, the rules, and how to verify a request.
- Guide: Fake Googlebots and PHP scanners: what hit our new server in 48 hours.
- Guide: robots.txt syntax: groups, wildcards and matching rules.
- Paste any user agent from your logs into the user-agent lookup, or follow the scripts in Fake Googlebots and PHP scanners.
How to allow or block AdsBot-Google-Mobile
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt at the root of your domain. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.
User-agent: AdsBot-Google-Mobile Allow: /
User-agent: AdsBot-Google-Mobile Disallow: /
Does your site allow AdsBot-Google-Mobile today? The checker evaluates your robots.txt for this and every other bot.Check my site
What we see on this site
No request identifying as AdsBot-Google-Mobile has been recorded since 19 Oct, so there is nothing to show yet. We never fill this in with estimates.
Counts come from this site's own server; they hold no IP addresses or URLs, and a user agent is only a claim. See the bot traffic data and the methodology.
Questions about AdsBot-Google-Mobile
What is AdsBot-Google-Mobile?
Google's crawler that checks the quality of mobile web pages used in Google Ads. Per Google, crawling preferences addressed to AdsBot-Google-Mobile affect Google Ads' ability to check web page ad quality. It identifies as an Android Chrome browser and files among Google's special-case crawlers.
Is AdsBot-Google-Mobile safe and legitimate?
The real AdsBot-Google-Mobile is a special-purpose crawler run by Google. A user-agent string is only a claim, though, so anyone can send it. Compare the requesting IP address with the published IP ranges. Google documents reverse DNS names of the form rate-limited-proxy-***-***-***-***.google.com for its special-case crawlers, to be confirmed by a forward lookup.
Does AdsBot-Google-Mobile obey robots.txt?
Yes, when named (ignores *), per Google. Google says AdsBot-Google-Mobile ignores the global User-agent: * group, so only a group that names it applies.
How do I block AdsBot-Google-Mobile?
Add a group to the robots.txt at the root of your domain: User-agent: AdsBot-Google-Mobile followed by Disallow: /. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.
Will blocking AdsBot-Google-Mobile hurt my Google rankings or AI visibility?
This is not the crawler behind a search index, so blocking it is not a ranking decision. Per Google, a rule for AdsBot-Google-Mobile affects Google Ads' ability to check the quality of your mobile pages. Search indexing is done by Googlebot, which has its own token.
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- Googlebot-Image Search engine crawlerGoogle's crawler for the images that appear in Google Search and related surfaces.
- GoogleOther Special-purpose crawlerGoogle's generic crawler that product teams can use for their own purposes.
Other Special-purpose crawlers
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- WebMCPIndexBot WebMCP ShieldA survey crawler that measures how widely websites adopt WebMCP.
- AgentTrustBot agenttru.stA crawler that looks for published AI agent discovery documents on newly seen hostnames.
- OAI-AdsBot OpenAIOpenAI's fetcher that checks web pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT.
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