AI crawlers · Training crawlers

`GoogleOther`

GoogleOther is the training crawler run by Google: Google non-search fetch. 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	`GoogleOther`
Operator	Google
What it does	Google non-search fetch
Kind	training 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; reported, never scored

Allow or block it in robots.txt

User-agent: GoogleOther
Disallow: /

User-agent: GoogleOther
Allow: /

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

What blocking it changes

No. It collects pages for training. Refusing it is a policy choice about training, separate from whether answer engines can reach, read and quote the site.

What it actually did on crawlcheck.io

Verified requests	11
Requests using its name from outside its operator's ranges	0 (0% of claims)
robots.txt fetched	0 times
Fetches of paths robots.txt disallows	0
Observed	2026-10-28 to 2026-10-29

Measured on this site’s own traffic, verified against the operator’s published ranges. Every agent’s record: agent conduct.

Other agents from Google

Google-CloudVertexBot — Vertex AI grounding
Googlebot — Google Search / AI Overviews
Google-Extended — Gemini training
Googlebot-Image — Google image crawler
Googlebot-News — Google News
Googlebot-Video — Google video crawler
Storebot-Google — Google Shopping
Mediapartners-Google — Google AdSense
APIs-Google — Google push delivery
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 GoogleOther 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 GoogleOther

QHow do I block GoogleOther in robots.txt?

QHow can I tell if a request from GoogleOther 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 GoogleOther affect whether my site appears in AI answers?

No. It collects pages for training. Refusing it is a policy choice about training, separate from whether answer engines can reach, read and quote the site.

QDoes CrawlCheck test my site as GoogleOther?

Not as a request. CrawlCheck reads the rules your robots.txt sets for GoogleOther and reports them. Rules for it are reported and never scored, because refusing it is a policy choice.