Google-Safety
Google's other crawler.
Quick answer
Google-Safety is a special-purpose Google crawler focused on abuse detection, such as finding malware, rather than search indexing or AI training. It operates outside the usual robots.txt rules that govern most other crawlers covered in this kind of comparison, and cannot be stopped that way.
What it does
Google-Safety handles abuse-specific crawling for Google, with malware discovery as its stated purpose, rather than building the search index or gathering AI training data. Because its job is to find harmful content regardless of what a site's robots.txt file says, Google states plainly that the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules entirely. Google publishes a dedicated IP range file for its special-case crawlers, including Google-Safety, so a site owner investigating unusual traffic can check whether it genuinely came from this agent. This crawler is unrelated to Googlebot's search indexing or to Google-Extended's AI training controls; it exists specifically to protect users from malicious content across the web, including on sites that have tried to block crawling entirely.
Facts
Operator
Robots token
Google-Safety
User agent string(s)
- Google-Safety
Purpose
Other
Respects robots.txt
No
IP ranges
https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/special-crawlers.json
From Google's documentation, checked Oct 2026.
Should you block it?
There is effectively no blocking decision to make here, since Google states that the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules outright, meaning a disallow directive aimed at it has no practical effect. This is different from every other crawler in this kind of comparison, where the site owner weighs visibility against data use; Google-Safety's abuse-detection role, centered on malware discovery, continues regardless of a site's stated preferences. A site owner who notices Google-Safety in their logs should understand it as part of Google's security infrastructure rather than as something to manage through robots.txt, and can instead verify the traffic against Google's published IP ranges for special-case crawlers if they want confirmation it is genuine. This bot has no bearing on search ranking, AI training, or AI answer visibility, so it sits outside those usual tradeoffs entirely.
How to block it
Google says the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules, so there is no disallow directive that will stop it. Site owners who want to confirm traffic is genuinely from Google-Safety can instead check it against Google's published IP ranges for special-case crawlers.
Frequently asked questions
Can I block Google-Safety with robots.txt?
No. Google says the Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules, so a disallow directive has no effect on it.
What does Google-Safety actually do?
Google says it handles abuse-specific crawling, such as malware discovery, separate from search indexing or AI training.
How can I verify Google-Safety traffic is genuine?
Google publishes an IP range file for its special-case crawlers, including Google-Safety, that site owners can check traffic against.
Related
- AI crawler directory — every AI crawler's robots.txt token, purpose and facts in one place.
- Free AI crawler checker — check which AI crawlers a domain's robots.txt actually allows or blocks.
- Glossary — definitions of the AI-visibility terms that come up alongside crawler behavior.
Sources
- The Google-Safety user agent ignores robots.txt rules. Source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-special-case-crawlers (checked Oct 2026)
- Google-Safety handles abuse-specific crawling such as malware discovery. Source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-special-case-crawlers (checked Oct 2026)
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