GoogleMessages

Builds the link preview when someone sends your page in Google Messages.

May skip robots.txt

User agent token: GoogleMessages
Operator: Google
Verification: Published IP list
Source: Google documentation

What a bot for ads, link previews or SEO tools does

These bots work for a specific product: checking an ad's landing page, drawing the preview when a link is shared, or collecting data for an SEO tool. Some only visit because the site owner asked them to.

Google says user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt, because a person asked for the fetch.

Block or allow GoogleMessages in robots.txt

Add one of these to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. Crawlers read it before they fetch anything else.

Block GoogleMessages

User-agent: GoogleMessages
Disallow: /

Allow GoogleMessages

User-agent: GoogleMessages
Allow: /

More from Google

GooglebotCrawls pages for Google Search, Discover, Images, Video and News. Google-ExtendedA robots.txt switch that decides whether Google may use your pages to train Gemini models and to ground their answers. GoogleOtherA general crawler Google product teams use to fetch public content outside Search. Google-CloudVertexBotCrawls a site when its owner asks Vertex AI to build an agent from it. Storebot-GoogleCrawls product pages for Google Shopping. Google-InspectionToolFetches a page when someone runs the Rich Results Test or URL Inspection in Search Console. AdsBot-GoogleChecks the quality of landing pages used in Google Ads. Googlebot-ImageCrawls images for Google Images, Discover and the image features in Search. Googlebot-VideoCrawls videos for the video features in Google Search. Googlebot-NewsA robots.txt name for Google News: it crawls with the regular Googlebot user agents, and these rules decide what appears in News. GoogleOther-ImageThe image version of GoogleOther, fetching public image URLs for Google product teams. GoogleOther-VideoThe video version of GoogleOther, fetching public video URLs for Google product teams. AdsBot-Google-MobileChecks the quality of mobile landing pages used in Google Ads. Mediapartners-GoogleReads pages that show AdSense or Ad Manager ads so the ads match the content. APIs-GoogleDelivers push notification messages sent through Google APIs. Google-SafetyCrawls for abuse checks, such as finding malware. Google-AgentBrowses the web and takes actions on pages when a person asks a Google AI agent to. Google-GeminiNotebookFetches a page that a person added as a source in a Gemini Notebook project. FeedFetcher-GoogleFetches RSS and Atom feeds for Google News and WebSub. GoogleProducerProcesses the feeds publishers supply to Google News through Publisher Center. Google-Read-AloudFetches a page so Google can read it out loud with text to speech. Google-PinpointFetches a page that a Pinpoint user added as a source to their research collection. Google-Site-VerificationFetches the token that proves you own a site in Search Console. Google-CWSRequests the URLs a developer lists in a Chrome Web Store extension or theme.

Browse all 66 crawlersAI and search bots from 16 companies, with the rules to block or allow each one.

Questions, answered.

GoogleMessages is a bot for ads, link previews or SEO tools run by Google. Builds the link preview when someone sends your page in Google Messages.

Not always. GoogleMessages fetches pages for a person, and Google says robots.txt may not apply. Google says user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt, because a person asked for the fetch.

Add "User-agent: GoogleMessages" and "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. Since robots.txt may not stop it, block it at your firewall or server too.

Check the request's IP address against the list Google publishes. A user agent alone proves nothing, since any script can copy it.

No. GoogleMessages works for one product, such as ad checks, link previews or SEO data, rather than bringing visitors.

Only if you don't use the product it works for. Blocking GoogleMessages is safe for your search rankings.

In its own documentation at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-user-triggered-fetchers. Every fact on this page comes from there.

Still have questions? We're happy to help.

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