GoogleOther-Video (Google): what it is and how to allow or block it
Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on
GoogleOther-Video is Google's generic crawler for public video URLs. Verify it by reverse DNS or Google's IP list; it obeys robots.txt, so block it by name. Its robots.txt token is GoogleOther-Video.
Facts
- Operator
- Category
- Special-purpose crawler
- robots.txt token
GoogleOther-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, GoogleOther-Video and GoogleOther; a rule needs to match only one.
- User-agent example
GoogleOther-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, GoogleOther-Video is the version of GoogleOther optimized for fetching publicly accessible video URLs. Like GoogleOther, rules for it do not affect any specific product.
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, rules for it do not affect any specific product, so a block removes your videos from no particular Google surface. Video features in Search use Googlebot-Video.
Is it really GoogleOther-Video?
Anyone can send GoogleOther-Video 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 crawl-***-***-***-***.googlebot.com or geo-crawl-***-***-***-***.geo.googlebot.com for its common crawlers, to be confirmed by a forward lookup.
- Guide: Googlebot and robots.txt: the token, the rules, and how to verify a request.
- Guide: robots.txt syntax: groups, wildcards and matching rules.
- Guide: How to block AI crawlers in robots.txt: tokens for training, search and user requests.
- 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 GoogleOther-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.
User-agent: GoogleOther-Video Allow: /
User-agent: GoogleOther-Video Disallow: /
Does your site allow GoogleOther-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 GoogleOther-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 GoogleOther-Video
What is GoogleOther-Video?
Google's generic crawler for fetching publicly accessible video URLs. Per Google, GoogleOther-Video is the version of GoogleOther optimized for fetching publicly accessible video URLs. Like GoogleOther, rules for it do not affect any specific product.
Is GoogleOther-Video safe and legitimate?
The real GoogleOther-Video 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 crawl-***-***-***-***.googlebot.com or geo-crawl-***-***-***-***.geo.googlebot.com for its common crawlers, to be confirmed by a forward lookup.
Does GoogleOther-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, GoogleOther-Video and GoogleOther; a rule needs to match only one.
How do I block GoogleOther-Video?
Add a group to the robots.txt at the root of your domain: User-agent: GoogleOther-Video followed by Disallow: /. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.
Will blocking GoogleOther-Video 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, rules for it do not affect any specific product, so a block removes your videos from no particular Google surface. Video features in Search use Googlebot-Video.
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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.
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- OAI-AdsBot OpenAIOpenAI's fetcher that checks web pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT.
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