01 · Operator
Who operates AdsBot-Google
- Company
- Type
- Other bot
- Official docs
- developers.google.com
02 · Behavior
What AdsBot-Google does
It visits landing pages to evaluate ad and page quality for Google Ads. A mobile variant, AdsBot-Google-Mobile, does the same for mobile pages. It ignores the global User-agent: * group in robots.txt. You must name it explicitly to restrict it.
03 · Impact
Why AdsBot-Google matters for your site
If you allow it
- Needed for Google Ads to assess your landing pages
- Blocking it can affect ad quality evaluation
- Verifiable through Google's IP list and reverse DNS
If you block it
- You do not run Google Ads
- You want to reduce crawl load from ad checks
04 · Allow
How to allow AdsBot-Google
robots.txt
User-agent: AdsBot-Google
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "AdsBot-Google")
Action: Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules
# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.WordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: AdsBot-Google
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "AdsBot\-Google") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AdsBot\-Google [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block AdsBot-Google
AdsBot-Google does not always follow robots.txt. Add a server or CDN rule if you need a hard block.
robots.txt
User-agent: AdsBot-Google
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "AdsBot-Google")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: AdsBot-Google
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "AdsBot\-Google") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AdsBot\-Google [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for AdsBot-Google
The user agent published by the operator:
AdsBot-Google (+http://www.google.com/adsbot.html)07 · Verification
Is it really AdsBot-Google?
Anyone can copy a user agent. Real AdsBot-Google requests come from the IP ranges published at developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/special-crawlers.json. A reverse DNS lookup of a real request resolves to google.com, and that hostname resolves back to the same IP.
FAQ
Questions about AdsBot-Google
Why does AdsBot-Google ignore my User-agent: * rule?
Google documents that AdsBot ignores the global user agent group. You must add a group with User-agent: AdsBot-Google to restrict it.
What is the difference between AdsBot-Google and AdsBot-Google-Mobile?
Both check ad page quality for Google Ads. The mobile variant uses a smartphone user agent and its own robots.txt token.
How do I verify AdsBot-Google?
Check the IP against Google's special-crawlers.json list. Reverse DNS should return a rate-limited-proxy host under google.com.
Last reviewed Oct 7, 2026