Google-Safety (Google): what it is and how to allow or block it
Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on
Google-Safety is Google's abuse crawler, for example for malware checks of posted links. Verify it by reverse DNS; per Google, robots.txt cannot block it. Google documents no robots.txt token for it; the name in its user agent is Google-Safety.
Facts
- Operator
- Category
- Special-purpose crawler
- robots.txt token
Google-SafetyGoogle documents no robots.txt token for it; this is the name in its user agent.
- Honors robots.txt?
- No, per Google. Google says the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules, and lists no robots.txt token for it.
- User-agent example
Google-Safety
- 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, the Google-Safety user agent handles abuse-specific crawling, such as malware discovery for publicly posted links on Google properties, and is therefore unaffected by crawling preferences.
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 robots.txt rule changes nothing, because Google-Safety ignores robots.txt rules and is unaffected by crawling preferences.
Is it really Google-Safety?
Anyone can send Google-Safety 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 Google-Safety
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.
Google names no robots.txt token for Google-Safety, so these groups use the name from its user agent and may have no effect. Google says the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules, and lists no robots.txt token for it.
User-agent: Google-Safety Allow: /
User-agent: Google-Safety Disallow: /
Does your site allow Google-Safety 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 Google-Safety 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 Google-Safety
What is Google-Safety?
Google's crawler for abuse-specific checks, such as malware discovery for publicly posted links on Google properties. Per Google, the Google-Safety user agent handles abuse-specific crawling, such as malware discovery for publicly posted links on Google properties, and is therefore unaffected by crawling preferences.
Is Google-Safety safe and legitimate?
The real Google-Safety 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 Google-Safety obey robots.txt?
No, per Google. Google says the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules, and lists no robots.txt token for it.
How do I block Google-Safety?
Robots.txt may not stop it. Google says the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules, and lists no robots.txt token for it. If you add a group anyway, use User-agent: Google-Safety followed by Disallow: /.
Will blocking Google-Safety hurt my Google rankings or AI visibility?
It is not the crawler behind Google's Search index. Per Google, it handles abuse-specific crawling and ignores robots.txt, so a rule for it changes nothing.
Related bots
More from Google
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- Googlebot Search engine crawlerGoogle's main crawler for Google Search, whose index Google's AI features in Search also draw on.
- 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
- archive.org_bot Internet ArchiveReported to be the crawler the Internet Archive uses for Wayback Machine and Archive-It captures.
- 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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