Google-CloudVertexBot

What Google-CloudVertexBot does

A search crawler reads your pages ahead of time and adds them to its operator's index. That index is what its search and assistant draw on to find pages and point people to them.

How to recognize it

Google-CloudVertexBot names itself in its user agent with the token Google-CloudVertexBot. That's what Ethogram matches, as a whole word in any case.

A user agent is only a claim, though: anyone can send Google-CloudVertexBot. Scrapers borrow well-known names to get past rules meant for the real agent, so before you trust a visit, or block one, check where it came from.

How to tell it's really Google-CloudVertexBot

Google publishes the IP ranges Google-CloudVertexBot uses, as JSON: developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/googlebot.json. A request from inside those ranges is the real Google-CloudVertexBot. One from outside isn't proof of a fake: Google's tools may also fetch from a person's own machine. Ethogram marks those visits unverified, never spoofed.

It can also be checked by reverse DNS: the request's IP resolves to a hostname ending in .googlebot.com or .google.com, and that hostname resolves back to the same IP. Check both directions: whoever controls an IP can point its reverse record at any name.

Ethogram runs these checks on every request and gives each visit a verdict: verified, unverified or spoofed. Spoofed visits are counted apart and never added to Google-CloudVertexBot's numbers. How verdicts work.

Allow or block Google-CloudVertexBot in robots.txt

robots.txt groups its rules by user-agent token. To ask Google-CloudVertexBot to stay off your whole site, add this group:

To let it read everything, name it with an allow rule. A group that names Google-CloudVertexBot replaces the User-agent: * group for it, so it follows only these rules:

robots.txt is a request, not a lock: it's up to Google-CloudVertexBot to read it and follow it. Ethogram reads your robots.txt every day and shows whether Google-CloudVertexBot respects it, with the disallowed paths it asked for. To actually keep it out, use your firewall or bot protection, and check the visit's verdict first so you block impostors, not the real Google-CloudVertexBot.

See what Google-CloudVertexBot does on your site

Most analytics filter Google-CloudVertexBot out as a bot. Ethogram records it on your server, where every request lands, with no script to load, and shows:

• Every visit from Google-CloudVertexBot, with a verdict on whether it's really Google-CloudVertexBot.
• Each visit step by step: the pages it read, what it searched for, and where it was blocked, looped or hit an error.
• Whether it respects your robots.txt, with the disallowed paths it asked for.
• How much of your bandwidth it takes, next to its share of requests.
• New versions of its user agent as they appear, and what changed in its behavior with each.
• A heads-up when its visits spike or stop, or when it starts getting blocked.