Google · AI answers
Google-Read-Aloud
Google’s fetcher for read-aloud and assistant playback. If it cannot parse the article text, the assistant has nothing to speak.
- Operator
- Traffic type
- AI answers
- Verification
- User-agent + IP range
- robots.txt
- Usually honors robots.txt
Usually means: Live fetches when someone asks an assistant a question. If these bots cannot reach the page, you cannot be the citation in that answer.
User-agent
robots.txt and most WAF rules match the token, not the full Mozilla string. Operators often wrap Google-Read-Aloud in extra product or version text.
Google-Read-Aloud
What Google-Read-Aloud does
Google-Read-Aloud requests the page to extract speakable content for assistant and read-aloud experiences. It is not a Search ranking crawl.
How to get discovered
Put the article body in HTML, use a proper lang attribute, and avoid text locked inside canvases or images. Allow the UA if you want assistant playback of your pages.
Why Google-Read-Aloud might skip you
Pages that are image-only, paywalled without a crawlable summary, or blocked by a generic AI-bot rule that does not distinguish Google’s assistant fetchers from scrapers.
robots.txt rule
Allow this token on public pages you want retrieved or cited. A CDN “Block AI bots” toggle can still 403 it after robots.txt says Allow.
# Keep Google-Read-Aloud eligible to fetch this site
User-agent: Google-Read-Aloud
Allow: /Allowlist so Google-Read-Aloud can reach you
A user-agent is spoofable. Google publishes current CIDR ranges as JSON — fetch that file for WAF/CDN allowlists instead of copying ranges from a blog. Ranges rotate; a screenshot of ten prefixes will go stale. If Cloudflare “Block AI bots” is on, this is the list that gets the real crawler through.
https://developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/user-triggered-fetchers.json ↗
Sources
JavaScript: render behavior is not documented.
Other Google bots
Training, search, and user-fetch tokens from the same operator are not interchangeable. Allow the discovery path even when you opt out of training.
Google-Read-Aloud FAQ
What is Google-Read-Aloud?
Google-Read-Aloud requests the page to extract speakable content for assistant and read-aloud experiences. It is not a Search ranking crawl.
Should I allow Google-Read-Aloud in robots.txt?
Yes if you want Google to be able to fetch and cite this site. Blocking Google-Read-Aloud is how pages stay invisible to that product even when Googlebot still crawls them.
How do I know a request is really Google-Read-Aloud?
A user-agent is a claim anyone can send. Match the Google-Read-Aloud token, then check the source IP against Google’s published ranges. Use those ranges as a WAF allowlist so a “Block AI bots” rule does not 403 the real crawler.
Letting Google-Read-Aloud in is the start. Getting cited is the job.
Rankealo checks whether AI crawlers can reach you, then publishes pages built to be retrieved and quoted in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
