Google-Extended vs Googlebot: AI training control without losing Search

Applies to: Google crawlers (Search + Gemini)

Published technical requirements
RequirementPublished rule
GooglebotGoogle Search's crawler. Blocking removes you from Google Search over time.
Google-Extendedrobots.txt control for whether content is used to train Gemini and for AI grounding. No separate request user-agent — Googlebot does the fetching.
Key factPer Google: Google-Extended does NOT affect Search inclusion and is NOT a ranking signal.

Official source: Google — Google's common crawlers · Last verified by us on 2026-08-30. Requirements change — always confirm against the official page before submitting.

Google separates AI-training consent from Search crawling. Googlebot crawls for Google Search; blocking it removes you from Search. Google-Extended is a robots.txt-only control governing whether the content Google already crawls may be used to train future Gemini models and for grounding.

The reassuring part

Per Google's documentation, Google-Extended does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal. So you can disallow Google-Extended to opt out of Gemini training while keeping full Google Search visibility. Note Google-Extended has no separate request user-agent string — Googlebot performs the fetch — so a live user-agent probe can't test it; robots.txt is the control surface. Confirm current details on Google's official page.

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