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# APIs-Google

> APIs-Google is an other bot run by Google. It delivers push notification messages from Google APIs to URLs that developers registered after proving they own the domain.

- Operator: Google
- Kind: Other bot
- robots.txt token: APIs-Google
- Follows robots.txt: partly
- Source: https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/apis-user-agent (checked 2026-11-05)
- Page: https://invisit.dev/bots/apis-google

## What is APIs-Google?

It delivers push notification messages from Google APIs to URLs that developers registered after proving they own the domain.

A bot that fits none of the groups above, such as an ad review crawler.

It ignores the User-agent: * group and Googlebot rules; only rules that name APIs-Google apply. Google says it retries failed deliveries for up to several days.

- [Google’s documentation](https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/apis-user-agent)

## APIs-Google user agent

Google documents this user agent for APIs-Google. Version numbers in it change over time, so match on the name, not the whole string.

```
APIs-Google (+https://developers.google.com/webmasters/APIs-Google.html)
```

## Should you block APIs-Google?

It depends on what it does; read the operator’s page below.

## How to block APIs-Google in robots.txt

Add a group for its token to robots.txt at the root of your site. Google says it follows robots.txt only in part, so this may not stop every fetch.

A bot follows only the group that names it, so it ignores your `User-agent: *` rules once it has a group of its own. Repeat any paths you also want kept from it there.

You can also stop it by unregistering the notifications, or asking whoever set them up on your domain to disable them.

```
User-agent: APIs-Google
Disallow: /
```

- [Build a robots.txt for AI bots](https://invisit.dev/tools/robots-txt-generator)

## How to verify a request is really APIs-Google

Anyone can send any user agent, so the string alone proves nothing.

Google publishes the IP ranges APIs-Google crawls from. A request that claims to be APIs-Google from any other address is not APIs-Google.

Or check by reverse DNS: look up the hostname of the request’s IP, confirm it ends in `google.com`, then look that hostname up again and confirm it points back to the same IP.

- [APIs-Google IP ranges](https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/special-crawlers.json)

## See when APIs-Google reads your site

Bots don’t run JavaScript analytics, so a script tag never sees them. invisit records crawler reads on the server instead, through its server SDK or a Cloudflare Worker, and shows which bots read which pages, next to your visitors.

- [Track crawlers with invisit](https://invisit.dev/docs/server/sdk#crawler-reads)

## Common questions

### What is APIs-Google?

APIs-Google is an other bot run by Google. It delivers push notification messages from Google APIs to URLs that developers registered after proving they own the domain.

### Is APIs-Google safe to block?

It depends on what it does; read the operator’s page below.

### How do I block APIs-Google?

Add “User-agent: APIs-Google” followed by “Disallow: /” to your robots.txt. Google doesn’t promise to follow it in every case, so block it at your server too if it matters.