Google-Extended

Google · Training honors robots.txt vendor-doc verified July 2026

What it does

Google-Extended never appears in access logs. It has no HTTP user-agent string — it exists only as a robots.txt User-agent: token. The actual crawling happens under Google's regular crawler user agents; this token controls whether the content those crawlers already fetch may be used for AI training.

Spoofer tell: because Google-Extended has no user agent, any log line claiming to be Google-Extended is fake. The analyzer flags such lines instead of counting them.

NEVER appears in access logs. Google-Extended has no HTTP user-agent string — crawling happens under regular Googlebot UAs; the token only works as a robots.txt User-agent line controlling Gemini training / AI grounding use. A log analyzer must not offer it as a log-match pattern.

Full UA: none exists — Google-Extended is a robots.txt-only token with no user-agent string; any log line carrying it is a spoofer.

How to verify a hit is really Google-Extended

Verification method (July 2026): n/a — robots.txt control token only

Nothing to verify: Google-Extended never generates traffic of its own, so there are no hits to attribute. Any log line carrying this token is a spoofer by definition.

Allow or block in robots.txt

Add the token to robots.txt — this is the only place Google-Extended does anything:

# Block Google-Extended site-wide
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
# Permit AI use of crawled content
User-agent: Google-Extended
Allow: /
Compliant bots stop fast. Well-behaved crawlers stop within roughly one crawl cycle of a robots.txt Disallow (we observed GPTBot's hammering on a production site we operate stop within one cycle). Give a fresh directive about a day before concluding it's being ignored.

For the allow-search-block-training combined pattern (and the Allow-directive gotcha that silently kills carve-outs), see the robots.txt guide. robots.txt governs whether Google-Extended may fetch; llms.txt is the separate, curated map AI assistants read once allowed in.

Vendor documentation: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers

The Google family

Google operates 5 distinct tokens in this roster, and they do not block each other: a robots.txt line for Google-Extended does nothing to its siblings — each needs its own User-agent: entry (the robots.txt guide has combined patterns).

TokenRolerobots.txt
GoogleOtherTraininghonors robots.txt
Google-CloudVertexBotUser actionhonors robots.txt
Google-AgentUser actionignores robots.txt
Google-GeminiNotebookUser actionignores robots.txt

Frequently asked questions

What is Google-Extended?

Google-Extended is a robots.txt control token from Google — it has no user agent and never appears in access logs; it controls AI-training use of content crawled by Google's regular crawlers.

Does Google-Extended respect robots.txt?

Yes — Google documents robots.txt compliance for Google-Extended (vendor docs reviewed July 2026).

How do I block Google-Extended?

Add 'User-agent: Google-Extended' followed by 'Disallow: /' to your robots.txt. Use the exact token — substring variants of other tokens will not match.

Related bots

Same vendor, then other training crawlers — the full directory profiles all 34.

AnswerFootprint crawler analytics — bot roster compiled July 2026 from vendor crawler docs and published IP lists (25/34 vendor-doc verified). The analyzer runs 100% client-side — your logs never leave this browser. User-agent strings can be spoofed; treat UA matches as a first pass and verify by IP before acting. Errors in the bot data: report them.