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Googlebot-Video (Google): what it is and how to allow or block it

Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on

Googlebot-Video is Google's crawler for videos in Search features. Verify it by Google's reverse DNS or IP list; it obeys robots.txt, so block or allow it by name or via Googlebot. Its robots.txt token is Googlebot-Video.

Facts

Operator
Google
Category
Search engine crawler
robots.txt token
Googlebot-Video
Honors robots.txt?
Yes, per Google. Google says its common crawlers always obey robots.txt rules when crawling automatically. Google lists two tokens for it, Googlebot-Video and Googlebot, and a rule needs to match only one of them.
User-agent example
Googlebot-Video/1.0
Official source
Google: Overview of Google crawlers and fetchers
Published IP ranges
https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/common-crawlers.json
Compared with the source

What it is used for

Per Google, crawling preferences addressed to Googlebot-Video affect video-related Google Search features and other products dependent on videos.

What happens if you block it

Per Google, a block affects video-related Google Search features and other products that depend on videos. Your pages themselves are crawled by Googlebot.

Is it really Googlebot-Video?

Anyone can send Googlebot-Video as a user agent, so a log line proves nothing by itself. The way to tell is the requesting IP address.

How to allow or block Googlebot-Video

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.

Allow Googlebot-Video
User-agent: Googlebot-Video
Allow: /
Block Googlebot-Video
User-agent: Googlebot-Video
Disallow: /

Does your site allow Googlebot-Video 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 Googlebot-Video 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 Googlebot-Video

What is Googlebot-Video?

Google's crawler for the videos that appear in video-related Google Search features. Per Google, crawling preferences addressed to Googlebot-Video affect video-related Google Search features and other products dependent on videos.

Is Googlebot-Video safe and legitimate?

The real Googlebot-Video is a search engine 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 crawl-***-***-***-***.googlebot.com or geo-crawl-***-***-***-***.geo.googlebot.com for its common crawlers, to be confirmed by a forward lookup.

Does Googlebot-Video obey robots.txt?

Yes, per Google. Google says its common crawlers always obey robots.txt rules when crawling automatically. Google lists two tokens for it, Googlebot-Video and Googlebot, and a rule needs to match only one of them.

How do I block Googlebot-Video?

Add a group to the robots.txt at the root of your domain: User-agent: Googlebot-Video followed by Disallow: /. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.

Will blocking Googlebot-Video hurt my Google rankings or AI visibility?

It affects videos, not your pages: per Google, rules for Googlebot-Video affect video-related Search features and other products dependent on videos. Pages are crawled by Googlebot.

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