Googlebot-News — Google News crawling
Googlebot-News is the user agent that governs crawling for Google News. Google documents it as relying on Googlebot for actual crawling, with the Googlebot-News token letting publishers control Google News inclusion separately from general Search.
What this means
Googlebot-News is the user agent associated with Google News. Google documents that Google News uses the Googlebot crawler for fetching, and that publishers can use the Googlebot-News token in robots.txt to control whether their content is included in Google News, independently of general Google Search.
This separation matters for publishers who want different policies for News versus Search.
How publishers control it
Because Googlebot performs the crawling, blocking Googlebot affects general Search crawling, while targeting the Googlebot-News token lets you influence Google News inclusion specifically. Consult Google's Publisher Center and Search Central documentation for the current, authoritative controls, as Google News policies evolve.
- User-agent token: Googlebot-News (for News inclusion control)
- Actual crawling is performed by Googlebot
- Lets News policy differ from general Search policy
How it appears in analytics and logs
Googlebot-News relates to Google News eligibility. Actual fetching is performed by Googlebot, so in logs you generally see Googlebot crawling; the Googlebot-News token is mainly a robots.txt control for News inclusion.
Diagnostic use case
Control whether your content is eligible for Google News separately from general Google Search crawling, using the Googlebot-News user-agent token.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies Google's crawling server-side as search-crawler activity and shows it separately from human traffic, so publishers can see Google crawl coverage without raw log access.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a separate News-only crawler does all the fetching — Googlebot does the crawling.
- Blocking Googlebot to leave News while removing yourself from Search too.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses the user agent plus Google's reverse-DNS/IP verification — no human identity. WebmasterID records related Googlebot crawling as bot events, 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-Video — Google's video crawler
Googlebot-Video is the Google crawler that fetches video content for Google's video features. It uses the Googlebot-Video robots.txt user-agent token and is documented among Google's common crawlers, letting operators control video crawling separately from page crawling.
- Bot intelligence
See search-engine crawlers separated from human traffic.
Sources and verification notes
- Google — Google crawlers (user agents) overviewDocuments Googlebot-News and that News relies on Googlebot crawling.
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.