What is AdsBot-Google?
AdsBot-Google is a specialized Google crawler that monitors and analyzes websites where Google Ads are served to ensure quality and policy compliance. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | August 11, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
AdsBot-Google usually returns to a small set of pages rather than crawling an entire site. Visits may follow an hourly, daily, or weekly schedule, while websites its clients do not monitor may never encounter it.
AdsBot-Google's User Agent
| User Agent | AdsBot-Google (+http://www.google.com/adsbot.html) |
How To Block AdsBot-Google With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block AdsBot-Google from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all intelligence gatherers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: AdsBot-Google # https://knownagents.com/agents/adsbot-google
Disallow: /Global Statistics for AdsBot-Google
As of August 11, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
9% of top websites block AdsBot-Google in their robots.txt files.
Overall Intelligence Gatherer Traffic
3.5% of all web traffic came from intelligence gatherers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by AdsBot-Google.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block AdsBot-Google?
If you run ads, confirm AdsBot-Google's purpose before blocking it. Some intelligence gatherers measure ad placements or evaluate pages for brand safety, and blocking those agents can interfere with advertising systems. If this one serves a different purpose, weigh any research visibility against sharing business or page-level data with third parties. For context, 9% of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for AdsBot-Google.
Does AdsBot-Google Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. AdsBot-Google is expected to follow robots.txt directives, so a disallow rule is the appropriate first step. Automatic Robots.txt can add and maintain that rule, while Agent Analytics lets you verify whether AdsBot-Google respects it.
Does AdsBot-Google Access Private Content?
No special access. AdsBot-Google can read publicly available pages but cannot bypass authentication. Assume anything you publish openly may be collected.
Why Is AdsBot-Google Visiting My Website?
A client of Google may be gathering competitive intelligence, measuring advertisements, or evaluating content for brand safety. The pages requested reflect that client's objective.
How Can I Tell if AdsBot-Google Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks visits from AdsBot-Google and every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper, then authenticates each visit using AdsBot-Google's published verification method. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "AdsBot-Google". Look for repeated requests to the same small group of commercial or ad-supported pages. A matching log entry alone is not proof because any bot can claim to be AdsBot-Google.