AI crawlers / AI crawlers
Google-GeminiNotebook: what it does and what blocking it changes
What Google-GeminiNotebook is
Google-GeminiNotebook is the user agent of the Gemini Notebook fetcher, which Google lists among its user-triggered fetchers. It requests individual URLs that users have provided as sources for their projects. Google's page lists Google-NotebookLM as the former agent, supported until August 2026.
| Fact | Google-GeminiNotebook |
|---|---|
| Operator | |
| Job | User-triggered fetch |
| robots.txt token | Google-GeminiNotebook |
| Follows robots.txt | Partial. Google says user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules because a user requested the fetch. |
| IP addresses | Reverse DNS check |
| Vendor page read | 24 October 2026 |
What the vendor says
In the vendor's words (English original): “The Gemini Notebook fetcher requests individual URLs that Gemini Notebook users have provided as sources for their projects.”
Source: Google Search Central: Google user-triggered fetchers, read on 24 October 2026.
What happens if you block Google-GeminiNotebook
Google says that because the fetch was requested by a user, user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules. The Google page documents no robots.txt token for this fetcher.
The robots.txt lines
To allow Google-GeminiNotebook:
User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook
Allow: /To block Google-GeminiNotebook:
User-agent: Google-GeminiNotebook
Disallow: /Paste a block into the robots.txt at the root of your host, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. A group for one token does not cover the operator's other crawlers.
The user-agent string the vendor shows:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/137.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 (compatible; Google-GeminiNotebook; +https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-gemininotebook)How to tell a real request from a fake one
Google says user-triggered fetchers publish IP ranges in user-triggered-fetchers.json, user-triggered-fetchers-google.json and user-triggered-agents.json, and that the reverse DNS mask matches *-*-*-*.gae.googleusercontent.com or google-proxy-*-*-*-*.google.com depending on whether the fetcher is Google or user owned.
Compare with ChatGPT-User
ChatGPT-User: Both fetch individual URLs because a user asked an assistant product to use them, and both vendors say these fetches may not follow robots.txt rules.
Your own site
The free check in the box above tests eight crawlers (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Bingbot and Googlebot). Google-GeminiNotebook is not one of them: read your robots.txt for a Google-GeminiNotebook group and look for the user agent in your server log. The full list of crawlers is on the AI crawler hub.
Questions people ask
Does Google-GeminiNotebook follow robots.txt?
Not always. Google says user-triggered fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules because a user requested the fetch. A rule for Google-GeminiNotebook in robots.txt may therefore not stop it. To refuse it for certain, use a firewall or CDN rule that matches both the user agent and the published addresses.
How do I know Google-GeminiNotebook is really blocked?
robots.txt is only one layer: a CDN or firewall rule can also turn a crawler away, and a crawler can ignore the file. Check your server log for the user agent, and test the address from outside your network.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Google user-triggered fetchers
- Google Search Central: Overview of Google crawlers and fetchers
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