AI crawlers · Search indexes

`Googlebot-News`

Googlebot-News is the search index crawler run by Google: Google News. Its operator documents how to verify it: Google common-crawler ranges (shared feed) + reverse DNS to googlebot.com or google.com. A reverse DNS lookup on the source address must return the operator's domain, and a forward lookup on that name must return the same address.

User-agent token	`Googlebot-News`
Operator	Google
What it does	Google News
Kind	search index crawler
Can a request be verified?	Yes — reverse dns
Verification source	Google common-crawler ranges (shared feed) + reverse DNS to googlebot.com or google.com
In a CrawlCheck scan	Read from robots.txt; a refusal is scored

Allow or block it in robots.txt

User-agent: Googlebot-News
Disallow: /

User-agent: Googlebot-News
Allow: /

Add a group that names it: "User-agent: Googlebot-News" followed by "Disallow: /". A crawler follows only the most specific group that names it, so once a group names Googlebot-News, rules under "User-agent: *" no longer apply to it; repeat in that group any Disallow lines you still want.

What blocking it changes

Indirectly. It feeds Google News. A refusal removes pages from that index, and most AI answer surfaces still draw on search indexes.

Other agents from Google

Google-CloudVertexBot — Vertex AI grounding
Googlebot — Google Search / AI Overviews
Google-Extended — Gemini training
Googlebot-Image — Google image crawler
Googlebot-Video — Google video crawler
Storebot-Google — Google Shopping
Mediapartners-Google — Google AdSense
APIs-Google — Google push delivery
GoogleOther — Google non-search fetch
AdsBot-Google — Google Ads quality
Gemini-Deep-Research — Gemini research agent
Google-Agent — Google user-triggered agent, acts on the web
Google-GeminiNotebook — Gemini Notebook user-supplied URL fetch
GoogleOther-Image — Google common crawler, public image URLs
GoogleOther-Video — Google common crawler, public video URLs

See what Googlebot-News and every other named agent receive from your own site: run a free scan. The full catalogue is on AI crawlers and as JSON at /ai-crawlers.json.

Questions about Googlebot-News

QHow do I block Googlebot-News in robots.txt?

QHow can I tell if a request from Googlebot-News is real?

Its operator documents how to verify it: Google common-crawler ranges (shared feed) + reverse DNS to googlebot.com or google.com. A reverse DNS lookup on the source address must return the operator's domain, and a forward lookup on that name must return the same address.

QDoes blocking Googlebot-News affect whether my site appears in AI answers?

Indirectly. It feeds Google News. A refusal removes pages from that index, and most AI answer surfaces still draw on search indexes.

QDoes CrawlCheck test my site as Googlebot-News?

Not as a request. CrawlCheck reads the rules your robots.txt sets for Googlebot-News and reports them. A refusal of it counts toward the grade, because it costs the site visibility.