Vertex AI Crawler (Google): User Agent & robots.txt Rules

Q: What is the official user-agent string for Vertex AI Crawler?

The official user-agent string for Vertex AI Crawler is: CloudVertexBot. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Vertex AI Crawler by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Q: How do I block Vertex AI Crawler in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: CloudVertexBot Disallow: / This instructs Vertex AI Crawler not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Q: How do I verify if Vertex AI Crawler is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string CloudVertexBot (case-insensitive: grep -i "CloudVertexBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: CloudVertexBot
Category:: AI & LLM Bots
Operator:: Google
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: developers.google.com

What is Vertex AI Crawler?

Vertex AI Crawler is an AI data-collection crawler operated by Google. It gathers public web content to build or refine training datasets for large language models. Like other AI training crawlers, Vertex AI Crawler does not influence your search-engine rankings, so you can block it via robots.txt without any SEO penalty if you wish to opt out of AI training.

Vertex AI Crawler is an AI data-collection crawler operated by Google. It gathers public web content to build or refine training datasets for large language models. Like other AI training crawlers, Vertex AI Crawler does not influence your search-engine rankings, so you can block it via robots.txt without any SEO penalty if you wish to opt out of AI training. Vertex AI Crawler uses the user-agent token CloudVertexBot. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Vertex AI Crawler?

✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking Vertex AI Crawler does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Vertex AI Crawler is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block Vertex AI Crawler with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: CloudVertexBot</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: CloudVertexBot
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: CloudVertexBot
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: CloudVertexBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block Vertex AI Crawler
if ($http_user_agent ~* "CloudVertexBot") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block Vertex AI Crawler
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "CloudVertexBot" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Vertex AI Crawler safe to allow?

Yes, Vertex AI Crawler is a **safe and legitimate** crawler operated by Google. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate Vertex AI Crawler requests resolve to Google's domain.

What does Vertex AI Crawler do?

Understanding Vertex AI Crawler's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

Collects public web content to train large language models
Builds and refreshes AI training datasets
Harvests text, code, and structured data for model improvement
Does NOT affect search-engine rankings
Can be blocked to opt out of AI training without SEO loss

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Vertex AI Crawler?

The official user-agent string for Vertex AI Crawler is: CloudVertexBot. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Vertex AI Crawler by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Is Vertex AI Crawler safe?

Yes, Vertex AI Crawler is a **safe and legitimate** crawler operated by Google. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Will blocking Vertex AI Crawler hurt my SEO?

✅ **No SEO Impact** - Blocking Vertex AI Crawler does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Vertex AI Crawler is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.

How do I block Vertex AI Crawler in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: CloudVertexBot
Disallow: /

This instructs Vertex AI Crawler not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Does Vertex AI Crawler respect robots.txt?

Vertex AI Crawler is operated by Google and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.

How do I verify if Vertex AI Crawler is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string CloudVertexBot (case-insensitive: grep -i "CloudVertexBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).