Knocklog

Googlebot-Image

Google's search engine.

Operator
Google
Type
Search engine
In the user agent
Googlebot-Image
robots.txt token
Googlebot-Image, Googlebot
Follows robots.txt
says it follows robots.txt
Official documentation
developers.google.com
Checked on
2026-11-11

What is Googlebot-Image?

Googlebot-Image is Google's search engine. It indexes pages for a search engine, whose results also feed AI answers.

The operator's description: Fetches images, logos and favicons for Google Images and Search features. (developers.google.com)

How do I block or allow Googlebot-Image?

With robots.txt, using the token Googlebot-Image, Googlebot. Google says it follows robots.txt. To block the whole site:

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: /

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /

To allow it, use Allow instead of Disallow. Before blocking, weigh what it brings: without it, the assistant cannot find your pages to cite or recommend them.

How do I see whether Googlebot-Image visits my site?

In your server or CDN access logs, look for Googlebot-Image in the user agent. Google Analytics does not show these visits: agents do not run its JavaScript.

Anyone can copy the name in a user agent, so counting log lines is not enough. Knocklog reads your site's traffic on any host, confirms who is who, and shows how often Googlebot-Image came, which pages it read and what that brought you.

How do I know it is really Googlebot-Image?

Google publishes Googlebot-Image's IP addresses at https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/common-crawlers.json. A visit that claims to be Googlebot-Image from outside those ranges is spoofed.

The IP's reverse DNS, confirmed forward and back, must end in .googlebot.com.

Knocklog runs this check on every visit and separates the genuine agent from impostors.

Does Googlebot-Image visit your site?

See in seconds how your site treats AI agents. Then connect your traffic to learn who really came.

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