Google up to date their Search Central Documentation to on verifying Googlebot, including documentation about user-triggered bot visits, info that was lacking from earlier Googlebot documentation, which has created confusion for a few years, with some publishers blocking the IP ranges of the authentic visits.
Newly Up to date Bot Documentation
Google added a brand new documentation that categorizes the three totally different sorts of bots that publishers ought to count on.
These are the three classes of Google Bots:
- Googlebot – Search crawler
- Particular-case crawlers
- Consumer-triggered fetchers (GoogleUserContent)
That final one, GoogleUserContent is one which’s confused publishers for a very long time as a result of Google didn’t have any documentation about it.
That is what Google says about GoogleUserContent:
“Consumer-triggered fetchers
Instruments and product features the place the top person triggers a fetch.
For instance, Google Web site Verifier acts on the request of a person.
As a result of the fetch was requested by a person, these fetchers ignore robots.txt guidelines.”
The documentation states that the reverse DNS masks will present the next area:
“***-***-***-***.gae.googleusercontent.com”
Prior to now, what I used to be instructed by some within the search engine optimization neighborhood, is that bot exercise from IP addresses related to GoogleUserContent.com was triggered when a person considered an internet site by means of a translate operate that was once within the search outcomes, a function that not exists in Google’s SERPs.
I don’t know if that’s true or not. It was sufficient to know that it was a go to from Google, triggered by customers.
Google’s new documentation explains that bot exercise from IP addresses related to GoogleUserContent.com will be triggered by the Google Web site Verifier software.
However Google doesn’t say what else may set off a bot from the GoogleUserContent.com IP addresses.
The opposite change within the documentation is a reference to googleusercontent.com within the context of IP addresses which are assigned to the area identify, GoogleUserContent.com.
That is the brand new textual content:
“Confirm that the area identify is both googlebot.com, google.com, or googleusercontent.com.”
One other new addition is the next textual content which was expanded from the outdated web page:
“Alternatively, you possibly can determine Googlebot by IP tackle by matching the crawler’s IP tackle to the lists of Google crawlers’ and fetchers’ IP ranges:
Googlebot
Particular crawlers like AdsBot
Consumer triggered fetches”
Google Bot Identification Documentation
The brand new documentation lastly has one thing about bots that use IP addresses which are related to GoogleUserContent.
Search Entrepreneurs had been confused by these IP addresses and assumed that these bots had been spam.
A Google Search Console Assist dialogue from 2020 reveals how confused folks had been about exercise related to GoogleUserContent.
Many in that dialogue rightly concluded that it was not Googlebot however then mistakenly concluded that it was a pretend bot pretending to be Google.
A person posted:
“The behaviour I see coming from these addresses may be very shut (if not equivalent) to authentic Googlebot behaviour, and it hits a number of websites of ours.
…If it isn’t – then this appears to point there may be widespread malicious bot exercise by somebody attempting fairly arduous to seem like Google on our websites which is regarding.”
After a number of responses the one who began the dialogue concludes that the GoogleUserContent exercise was spam.
They wrote:
“…The Googlebots in query do mimic the official Consumer-Brokers, however because it stands the proof appears to level to them being pretend.
I’ll block them for now.”
Now we all know that bot exercise from IPs related to GoogleUserContent usually are not spam or hacker bots.
They are surely from Google. Publishers who’re at the moment blocking IP addresses related to GoogleUserContent ought to most likely unblock them.
The present checklist of Consumer Triggered Fetcher IP addresses is accessible right here.
Learn Google’s up to date documentation:
Verifying Googlebot and different Google crawlers
Featured picture by Shutterstock/Asier Romero
