AdsBot-Google — Google Ads landing-page checker
AdsBot-Google is the Google crawler that checks the quality of web pages used as Google Ads landing pages. Google documents that AdsBot crawlers may ignore the global robots.txt wildcard group, so to control them you target the AdsBot-Google token explicitly.
What this means
AdsBot-Google crawls pages used as Google Ads landing pages to assess their quality. Its behaviour differs from organic-search crawlers in one important respect: Google documents that AdsBot crawlers may ignore the global robots.txt wildcard group (User-agent: *).
That design choice exists so advertisers cannot accidentally block ad-quality checks via a broad wildcard rule. To control AdsBot, you must name its token.
robots.txt considerations
Because AdsBot-Google may ignore the User-agent: * group, a generic wildcard Disallow will not necessarily stop it. To restrict it, add a rule targeting the AdsBot-Google token specifically. Review Google's current AdsBot documentation before changing rules, since blocking ad-quality checks can affect ad performance.
- Token: AdsBot-Google (Google also documents related mobile AdsBot tokens)
- May ignore the global User-agent: * robots group per Google docs
- Target the AdsBot-Google token explicitly to control it
How it appears in analytics and logs
AdsBot-Google requests indicate Google is evaluating ad landing-page quality, typically for pages used in Google Ads. It is bot traffic tied to advertising checks, not human visits or organic-search crawling.
Diagnostic use case
Understand AdsBot-Google hits on advertised landing pages, and control it correctly by targeting its token rather than relying on a wildcard robots rule.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies AdsBot-Google server-side as a search/ads crawler and shows its activity separately from human traffic, so landing-page check hits are visible without log parsing.
Common mistakes
- Relying on a User-agent: * Disallow to block AdsBot — Google documents it may ignore that group.
- Blocking AdsBot without considering the effect on ad landing-page quality checks.
- Confusing AdsBot ad checks with organic Googlebot crawling.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses the user agent plus Google's reverse-DNS/IP verification — no human identity. WebmasterID records AdsBot-Google as a bot event, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- Googlebot Smartphone — Google's mobile-first crawler
Googlebot Smartphone is the mobile user-agent variant of Googlebot and, under mobile-first indexing, Google's primary crawler for most sites. It uses the Googlebot robots.txt token and can be verified through reverse DNS and Google's published crawler IP ranges.
- Googlebot Desktop — Google's secondary crawler
Googlebot Desktop is the desktop user-agent variant of Googlebot. Under mobile-first indexing it is secondary to Googlebot Smartphone for most sites. It shares the Googlebot robots.txt token and is verified the same way: reverse DNS into googlebot.com or google.com, or matching Google's published crawler IP ranges.
- Bot intelligence
See search-engine and ads crawlers separated from human traffic.
Sources and verification notes
- Google — Google crawlers (user agents) overviewDocuments AdsBot-Google and that AdsBot may ignore the global robots group.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.