SEO tools, run by Google.

What is Google-InspectionTool? Google's SEO tool crawler. Verifiable by IP ranges and reverse DNS.

Run by Google.
Purpose: SEO tools. A visit means an SEO tool is crawling your site, either for its own index of links and pages or because someone ran an audit or test on your site.
robots.txt name: Google-InspectionTool.
Verifiable by IP ranges and reverse DNS.

At a glance, the facts in one table.

Google-InspectionTool at a glance. Taken from SenseGap's open bot directory, the same data that sorts every visit in the dashboard.

Google-InspectionTool facts
	Google-InspectionTool
Operator	Google
Purpose	SEO tools
User agent contains	`Google-InspectionTool`
robots.txt name	`Google-InspectionTool`
Verification	IP ranges + Reverse DNS
Documentation	None listed

Purpose, what it does and why it came.

What Google-InspectionTool does. SenseGap sorts every visit by purpose. Google-InspectionTool is in the SEO tools group.

Google-InspectionTool is Google's crawler that collects data for Google's SEO tools. Google-InspectionTool is the crawler behind Search Console's URL Inspection and the Rich Results Test. It fetches a page when someone runs one of those tests.

What a visit means

A visit means an SEO tool is crawling your site, either for its own index of links and pages or because someone ran an audit or test on your site.

Detection, the header SenseGap matches.

How SenseGap recognizes Google-InspectionTool. By its User-Agent header. A separate check then decides whether the visit is real.

Every request carries a User-Agent header naming the software that sent it. SenseGap counts a request as Google-InspectionTool when that header contains Google-InspectionTool, in any letter case. The header is plain text, so any script can copy it. Matching the name is where recognition starts, not where trust starts.

Pattern matched against User-Agent

/Google-InspectionTool/i

Verification, how to tell a real visit from a fake.

How to verify Google-InspectionTool. Google publishes its IP ranges and DNS names, so a real visit can be proven.

How we verify bots

IP ranges

googlebot.json

Published by Google at developers.google.com. A real Google-InspectionTool visit comes from an address in this list.

Open the list

SenseGap

Checked on every visit

SenseGap runs both checks on every visit that claims to be Google-InspectionTool, IP ranges first, then reverse DNS confirmed by a forward lookup. A pass is marked Real. A visit that sends the name and fails is marked Fake, and stays out of your other reports.

01
Look up the visiting address
Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address the request came from. It returns a hostname.
02
Check the hostname
The hostname must end in .googlebot.com, .google.com or .googleusercontent.com. Anything else is not Google-InspectionTool.
```
*.googlebot.com
*.google.com
*.googleusercontent.com
```
03
Look the hostname up again
Run a forward lookup on that hostname. It must return the same IP address, otherwise the reverse record could have been set by anyone.

The same check from a terminal

$ host <visiting-ip>
… domain name pointer <hostname>.googlebot.com.

$ host <hostname>.googlebot.com
<hostname>.googlebot.com has address <visiting-ip>

robots.txt, rules you can copy.

Block or allow Google-InspectionTool in robots.txt. Its robots.txt name is Google-InspectionTool. Paste a group into the robots.txt at your site's root.

Block the whole site

User-agent: Google-InspectionTool
Disallow: /

Allow the whole site

User-agent: Google-InspectionTool
Allow: /

Block one folder

User-agent: Google-InspectionTool
Disallow: /private/

One rule catches people out. Under the robots.txt standard (RFC 9309), a crawler that finds a group naming it follows only that group and ignores your User-agent: * rules. If you add a Google-InspectionTool group, repeat in it anything from the catch-all group you still want applied.

robots.txt is a request, not a lock. To enforce a block, match the User-Agent header at your server or CDN. In nginx:

Enforce it at the server

# nginx, inside a server block
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Google-InspectionTool") {
    return 403;
}

SenseGap reads your robots.txt and shows, bot by bot, what you allow and which bots fetched pages you disallowed. See what you get.

Trade-off, what blocking changes.

Should you block Google-InspectionTool? It depends on what you want from Google. Here is what each choice means.

If you allow it
Your site's data in the tool stays complete, and audits you run with it keep working.
If you block it
The tool's picture of your site becomes incomplete, and its audits of your site may fail. It has no effect on how search engines rank you.

Google, every bot it runs.

More bots from Google. Google runs 8 bots in the directory, each with its own job.

SEO tools, other bots with the same job.

Other SEO tool crawlers. Same purpose, different companies.

Browse the directory

FAQ, Google-InspectionTool in short answers.

Google-InspectionTool, answered plainly

What is Google-InspectionTool?

Google-InspectionTool is Google's crawler that collects data for Google's SEO tools. Google-InspectionTool is the crawler behind Search Console's URL Inspection and the Rich Results Test. It fetches a page when someone runs one of those tests.

Who runs Google-InspectionTool?

Google. SenseGap's directory has no documentation link for it yet.

What does a visit from Google-InspectionTool mean?

A visit means an SEO tool is crawling your site, either for its own index of links and pages or because someone ran an audit or test on your site.

What user agent does Google-InspectionTool use?

Its User-Agent header contains "Google-InspectionTool". SenseGap matches it regardless of letter case.

How do I block Google-InspectionTool?

Add "User-agent: Google-InspectionTool" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. robots.txt is a request, not a lock; to enforce it, block the user agent at your server or CDN.

How do I know a visit is really Google-InspectionTool?

Google publishes the IP ranges Google-InspectionTool uses (googlebot.json), so check that the visiting address falls inside one of them. You can also run a reverse DNS lookup on the address: the hostname must end in .googlebot.com, .google.com or .googleusercontent.com, and a forward lookup of that hostname must return the same address. SenseGap runs these checks on every visit.

Does Google publish IP ranges for Google-InspectionTool?

Yes, at https://developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/googlebot.json.

What happens if I block Google-InspectionTool?

The tool's picture of your site becomes incomplete, and its audits of your site may fail. It has no effect on how search engines rank you.

See whether Google-InspectionTool visits your site. SenseGap records every visit, checks whether it's real, and shows which pages it read.

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