Other, run by Google.

What is the Google user-triggered fetcher? Google fetchers that load a page when a person asks for it. Verifiable by IP ranges and reverse DNS.

Run by Google.
Purpose: Other. A visit means the crawler fetched your page for its own job, outside search rankings and AI answers.
No single robots.txt name. Block it at your server instead.
Verifiable by IP ranges and reverse DNS.

At a glance, the facts in one table.

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

Google user-triggered fetcher facts
	Google user-triggered fetcher
Operator	Google
Purpose	Other
User agent contains	`FeedFetcher-Google`, `Google-Read-Aloud`, `Google-Site-Verification`, `GoogleProducer`
robots.txt name	None
Verification	IP ranges + Reverse DNS
Documentation	None listed

Purpose, what it does and why it came.

What the Google user-triggered fetcher does. SenseGap sorts every visit by purpose. The Google user-triggered fetcher is in the Other group.

Google's user-triggered fetchers load a page when a person asks for it through a Google product, such as a feed reader, Read Aloud or Search Console's site verification. This entry matches FeedFetcher-Google, Google-Read-Aloud, Google-Site-Verification and GoogleProducer.

What a visit means

A visit means the crawler fetched your page for its own job, outside search rankings and AI answers.

Detection, the header SenseGap matches.

How SenseGap recognizes the Google user-triggered fetcher. 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 the Google user-triggered fetcher when that header contains any of FeedFetcher-Google, Google-Read-Aloud, Google-Site-Verification or GoogleProducer, 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

/FeedFetcher-Google|Google-Read-Aloud|Google-Site-Verification|GoogleProducer/i

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

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

How we verify bots

IP ranges

user-triggered-fetchers.json

Published by Google at developers.google.com. A real the Google user-triggered fetcher visit comes from an address in one of these lists.

Open the list

IP ranges

user-triggered-fetchers-google.json

Published by Google at developers.google.com. A real the Google user-triggered fetcher visit comes from an address in one of these lists.

Open the list

SenseGap

Checked on every visit

SenseGap runs both checks on every visit that claims to be the Google user-triggered fetcher, 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 the Google user-triggered fetcher.
```
*.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.

How to block the Google user-triggered fetcher. It has no single robots.txt name, so a rule at your server or CDN is the dependable way.

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

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 ~* "FeedFetcher-Google|Google-Read-Aloud|Google-Site-Verification|GoogleProducer") {
    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 the Google user-triggered fetcher? It depends on what you want from Google. Here is what each choice means.

If you allow it
The service the crawler supports keeps working with your site.
If you block it
The service the crawler supports may stop working with your site.

Google, every bot it runs.

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

FAQ, the Google user-triggered fetcher in short answers.

The Google user-triggered fetcher, answered plainly

What is the Google user-triggered fetcher?

Who runs the Google user-triggered fetcher?

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

What does a visit from the Google user-triggered fetcher mean?

A visit means the crawler fetched your page for its own job, outside search rankings and AI answers.

What user agent does the Google user-triggered fetcher use?

Its User-Agent header contains one of "FeedFetcher-Google", "Google-Read-Aloud", "Google-Site-Verification" or "GoogleProducer". SenseGap matches any of these regardless of letter case.

How do I block the Google user-triggered fetcher?

The Google user-triggered fetcher has no single robots.txt name, so the reliable way is a rule at your server, CDN or firewall that matches its user agent. Google says user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules, because a person asked for the fetch.

How do I know a visit is really the Google user-triggered fetcher?

Google publishes the IP ranges Google user-triggered fetcher uses (user-triggered-fetchers.json and user-triggered-fetchers-google.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 the Google user-triggered fetcher?

Yes, at https://developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/user-triggered-fetchers.json and https://developers.google.com/static/search/apis/ipranges/user-triggered-fetchers-google.json. A real visit comes from an address in one of these lists.

What happens if I block the Google user-triggered fetcher?

The service the crawler supports may stop working with your site.

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

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