Google · Training crawlers
GoogleOther
Google’s generic crawler for product teams, research, and development fetches. It is not Googlebot and does not replace Search indexing.
- Operator
- Traffic type
- Training crawlers
- Verification
- User-agent + IP range
- robots.txt
- Honors robots.txt
Usually means: Bots that collect public pages for future models. Blocking them opts you out of training. It does not, by itself, remove you from live AI search citations.
User-agent
robots.txt and most WAF rules match the token, not the full Mozilla string. Operators often wrap GoogleOther in extra product or version text.
GoogleOther
What GoogleOther does
GoogleOther fetches public pages for Google product teams, including internal research. Blocking it does not deindex you from Search; blocking Googlebot does.
How to get discovered
Leave Googlebot allowed. Treat GoogleOther as optional. If you block GoogleOther, do not copy the same Disallow onto Googlebot.
Why GoogleOther might skip you
A robots group aimed at Google* that is broader than you intended, or bot-management that lumps GoogleOther with scrapers.
robots.txt rule
This snippet opts out of training-style collection. Keep the search and user-fetch tokens from the same operator allowed if you still want citations.
# Optional training opt-out — does not remove you from AI search by itself
User-agent: GoogleOther
Disallow: /Allowlist so GoogleOther 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/special-crawlers.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.
GoogleOther FAQ
What is GoogleOther?
GoogleOther fetches public pages for Google product teams, including internal research. Blocking it does not deindex you from Search; blocking Googlebot does.
Should I allow GoogleOther in robots.txt?
Only if you want to opt out of training-style collection. Blocking GoogleOther does not, by itself, remove you from live AI search citations — those use the search and user-fetch tokens from Google.
How do I know a request is really GoogleOther?
A user-agent is a claim anyone can send. Match the GoogleOther 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 GoogleOther 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.
