GoogleOther-Video
Google operates GoogleOther-Video, a version of its GoogleOther crawler optimized for fetching publicly accessible video URLs; rules addressed to it affect no specific Google product. It obeys robots.txt under the GoogleOther-Video token and also matches the GoogleOther token. Site owners verify it by reverse DNS to googlebot.com, google.com or googleusercontent.com with matching forward DNS, or against the published common-crawlers.json ranges.
GoogleOther-Video/1.0What GoogleOther-Video does
The documented user agent string is GoogleOther-Video/1.0 alone, with no browser-style prefix. Requests target publicly accessible video URLs, since Google describes this agent as the version of GoogleOther optimized for that job. Google says crawling preferences addressed to GoogleOther-Video do not affect any specific product, the same as for GoogleOther, so the visits are not tied to Search or another named service. Google lists it as a common crawler, and it honors robots.txt.
Blocking GoogleOther-Video removes nothing from a named Google product, because Google states that rules addressed to it affect no specific product. What you give up is undocumented beyond that statement, so the decision comes down to whether you want Google fetching your video files for purposes Google does not attach to a product. Two robots.txt tokens apply. A rule naming GoogleOther-Video addresses this agent, and a rule naming GoogleOther also matches it, so a site that has already disallowed GoogleOther has disallowed the video variant too.
Verification follows the same path as Google's other common crawlers. Reverse-resolve the source IP and confirm the hostname ends in googlebot.com, google.com or googleusercontent.com, typically in the form crawl-***-***-***-***.googlebot.com or geo-crawl-***-***-***-***.geo.googlebot.com, then forward-resolve that hostname and check it returns the same IP. As an alternative, match the IP against the prefixes in common-crawlers.json at developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/. Google does not document whether GoogleOther-Video executes JavaScript.
Operator note. Common crawler; also matches the GoogleOther robots.txt token.
Controlling GoogleOther-Video with robots.txt
Use the token GoogleOther-Video in robots.txt. Google documents that GoogleOther-Video honors robots.txt directives.
User-agent: GoogleOther-Video
Disallow: /User-agent: GoogleOther-Video
Allow: /Verifying a request is really GoogleOther-Video
Anyone can put GoogleOther-Video in a User-Agent header. Reverse DNS to googlebot.com, google.com, or googleusercontent.com with matching forward DNS, or match the source IP against the published common-crawlers.json ranges.
host <request-ip>
# expect a hostname ending in googlebot.com (crawl-***-***-***-***.googlebot.com or geo-crawl-***-***-***-***.geo.googlebot.com)
host <that-hostname>
# expect it to resolve back to <request-ip>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
- 317
- IPv4
- 170
- IPv6
- 147
First entries at fetch time: 2001:4860:4801:10::/64, 2001:4860:4801:11::/64, 2001:4860:4801:12::/64
SHA-256 of the fetched body: 241e712f9c902b33aa4c0cc79268c34cb00c025edbc27298547be298763ddade
Common questions
Should I block GoogleOther-Video?
Google says rules addressed to GoogleOther-Video affect no specific product, so blocking it does not remove you from Search or another named service. Google does not document what the fetched video URLs are used for beyond that. If you have already disallowed GoogleOther in robots.txt, this agent is covered by that rule.
How do I verify GoogleOther-Video?
Use the same check as for Googlebot. Reverse DNS on the source IP should end in googlebot.com, google.com or googleusercontent.com; a forward lookup of that hostname must return the same IP. Or match the IP against Google's published common-crawlers.json ranges under developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/.
Does GoogleOther-Video run JavaScript?
The operator's documentation does not say. Google describes the agent as optimized for fetching publicly accessible video URLs and lists it among its common crawlers, but the verified sources do not state whether it renders pages or executes scripts.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against Google's own documentation, listed below, and re-checked by a second reviewer before publication. Reviewed September 2026.
Related crawlers
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.