Knocklog

Google-InspectionTool

Google's search engine.

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

What is Google-InspectionTool?

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

The operator's description: Fetches pages for Search testing tools such as URL Inspection and the Rich Results Test. (developers.google.com)

How do I block or allow Google-InspectionTool?

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

User-agent: Google-InspectionTool
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 Google-InspectionTool visits my site?

In your server or CDN access logs, look for Google-InspectionTool 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 Google-InspectionTool came, which pages it read and what that brought you.

How do I know it is really Google-InspectionTool?

Google publishes Google-InspectionTool's IP addresses at https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/common-crawlers.json. A visit that claims to be Google-InspectionTool 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 Google-InspectionTool 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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