User-triggered fetcher · Google

Google Publisher Center user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt

Google Publisher Center is Google's user-triggered fetcher. It identifies itself with the GoogleProducer user-agent token, does not consult robots.txt according to its operator, and runs from 496 published IP prefixes.

Operator
Google
Reviewed
September 2026
Sources
1
Operator
Google
User-agent token
GoogleProducer
Purpose
User-triggered fetcher
robots.txt token
undocumented
Honors robots.txt
No, per the operator
Published IP ranges
Yes, 496 prefixes (248 IPv4, 248 IPv6)
Verification
Reverse DNS with matching forward DNS, or match the source IP against user-triggered-fetchers.json or user-triggered-fetchers-google.json.
Reverse DNS suffix
gae.googleusercontent.com (***-***-***-***.gae.googleusercontent.com) or google.com (google-proxy-***-***-***-***.google.com)
Full user-agent example
GoogleProducer; (+https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-producer)
Documentation
developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/overview-google-crawlers

Block or allow Google Publisher Center in robots.txt

Use the token undocumented in robots.txt. Google documents that this fetcher does not consult robots.txt, so a robots rule will not stop it; see the operator note.
Block everything
User-agent: undocumented
Disallow: /
Allow everything
User-agent: undocumented
Allow: /

Verify a request is really Google Publisher Center

Anyone can put GoogleProducer in a User-Agent header. Reverse DNS with matching forward DNS, or match the source IP against user-triggered-fetchers.json or user-triggered-fetchers-google.json.

Reverse DNS check
host <request-ip>
# expect a hostname ending in gae.googleusercontent.com (***-***-***-***.gae.googleusercontent.com) or google.com (google-proxy-***-***-***-***.google.com)
host <that-hostname>
# expect it to resolve back to <request-ip>

Published IP ranges

Google publishes a machine-readable list. Our probe read it on 2026-09-06; the file's own creation time was 2026-09-04.

Prefixes
496
IPv4
248
IPv6
248

First entries at fetch time: 2001:4860:4801:4004::/64, 2001:4860:4801:4008::/64, 2001:4860:4801:4009::/64

SHA-256 of the fetched body: 5590a1a5d2fbe83872191aa2d8d45e9c854c56c49b742df9d33b7612f5482a5a

Open the live file

What Google Publisher Center does

Google operates the Google Publisher Center fetcher, seen in logs as GoogleProducer, to fetch and process feeds that publishers explicitly supplied for Google News landing pages. Google documents no robots.txt token for it and says it generally ignores robots.txt. Site owners verify requests by reverse DNS with a matching forward lookup, or against Google's published user-triggered-fetchers-google.json IP ranges.

The request appears in logs with the user-agent GoogleProducer; (+https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-producer). Google classes it as a user-triggered fetcher and says the fetch retrieves and processes feeds that publishers explicitly supplied for use in Google News landing pages. Google's documentation names the supplied feed as the target of the fetch, so a site that has not supplied a feed to Publisher Center has no documented reason to expect this user agent.

Because Google says this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt and documents no robots.txt token for it, a Disallow rule is not the documented way to stop it. The practical control is on the publisher side, since the feeds Google fetches are the ones a publisher supplied. Blocking the requests at the server level would stop Google from reading the supplied feed, which affects the Google News landing pages that depend on it; Google's documentation describes no other effect.

Google verifies these requests by reverse DNS. The source IP resolves to a hostname ending in gae.googleusercontent.com (in the form ***-***-***-***.gae.googleusercontent.com) or google.com (google-proxy-***-***-***-***.google.com), and a forward lookup of that hostname returns the same IP. As an alternative, Google publishes the IP ranges in user-triggered-fetchers.json and user-triggered-fetchers-google.json, and a request from within those ranges is genuine.

Operator note. User-triggered fetcher; generally ignores robots.txt.

Common questions

Should I block Google Publisher Center (GoogleProducer)?
Only if you no longer want Google to read a feed you supplied through Publisher Center. The fetcher exists to process feeds publishers submitted for Google News landing pages, so blocking it stops that processing. Google says it generally ignores robots.txt, so a server-level block is the only documented way to refuse the requests.
How do I verify a GoogleProducer request?
Run a reverse DNS lookup on the source IP. Google says the hostname ends in gae.googleusercontent.com or google.com, and a forward lookup of that name must return the original IP. Alternatively, check the IP against Google's published user-triggered-fetchers.json or user-triggered-fetchers-google.json ranges.
Does GoogleProducer obey robots.txt?
No. Google documents it as a user-triggered fetcher that generally ignores robots.txt, and Google documents no robots.txt token for it. The fetch happens because a publisher explicitly supplied a feed through Publisher Center, so the control is the feed configuration rather than a robots.txt rule.

Sources

The operator documentation used for this entry. Recorded review date September 2026; consult the linked pages for current policy and compare them with this dated snapshot.

  1. [1]https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-user-triggered-fetchers

This registry documents how operators describe their own bots so site owners can identify and control them. It does not publish third-party IP lists or guess at undocumented behaviour. To see how your own site responds to automated visitors, the bot detection scanner reads a URL's live response and names the protection it finds.