Verified Bot Check
Whether an address is the crawler it claims to be, by the operator's own list and DNS.
- Free, no signup
- The crawler operators' published IP lists, updated daily, and reverse DNS
- Updated November 8, 2026
Published IP lists
- Listed
- Range
Reverse DNS
- Hostname (PTR)
- Resolves back to the IP
- Documented crawler domain
The crawlers this check can verify
| Operator | Bots and services | IP list | Reverse DNS ends in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Googlebot, Google special crawler (AdsBot), Google user-triggered fetcher, Google user-triggered agent | Yes | googlebot.com, google.com, gae.googleusercontent.com | |
| Microsoft | Bingbot | Yes | search.msn.com |
| Apple | Applebot | Yes | applebot.apple.com |
| OpenAI | GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, OAI-AdsBot | Yes | — |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User | Yes | — |
| DuckDuckGo | DuckDuckBot | Yes | — |
| Anthropic | ClaudeBot | Yes | — |
| Common Crawl | CCBot | Yes | — |
| Ahrefs | AhrefsBot | Yes | — |
| UptimeRobot | UptimeRobot monitor | Yes | — |
| Pingdom | Pingdom probe | Yes | — |
| Stripe | Stripe webhooks | Yes | — |
| GitHub | GitHub webhooks | Yes | — |
| Yandex | — | No | yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com |
The lists are each operator's own, reloaded every day. Hostnames are the domains each operator documents for its crawlers; a match counts only when the name also resolves back to the address.
Is this Googlebot IP real? Paste the IP address from your server log, and the user agent it sent if you have it, and this check tells you whether the address belongs to the crawler it claims to be.
It checks the address the two ways the operators themselves describe: against the IP lists they publish (22 lists from Google, Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and others, loaded daily) and by forward-confirmed reverse DNS. The table on this page lists every crawler it can verify and how.
How to Read the Result
- Verified: the address belongs to the operator, confirmed by its published list, by reverse DNS, or both. Without a user agent, the check says which operator’s crawler the address is.
- Not the claimed crawler, another operator’s address: the user agent says Googlebot, but the address belongs to someone else on the list, for example OpenAI. Something on that network is using a borrowed name.
- Fake: the user agent claims a crawler whose operator publishes a way to check, and the address is in none of its ranges and its reverse DNS does not lead to it. Anyone can type any user agent.
- Not confirmed, no reverse DNS name: the user agent claims a crawler checked by reverse DNS alone (Yandex), and the address returned no hostname. Real crawlers of that operator have one, so it is most likely not that bot, unless the DNS lookup failed: try again in a few minutes.
- Not a crawler we can verify: the address is on no list we check and its reverse DNS is not a documented crawler hostname. Paste the user agent to test a specific claim.
The result also shows the range the address sits in with a link to the operator’s list, and the address’s reverse DNS name and whether it resolves back. An address’s result is kept for an hour, or for 5 minutes when it returned no reverse DNS name, so a failed DNS lookup is retried soon.
Why Fake Googlebots Exist
Some sites let Googlebot in where they block other bots, skip rate limits for it, or serve it pages that others must log in to see. So scrapers, spam bots and vulnerability scanners copy Googlebot’s user agent to get the same treatment. The user agent is a line of text the client chooses, so it proves nothing on its own (our user agent tool shows what yours says).
The address is harder to fake: a request has to come from it for the server to answer.
How to Verify Googlebot by Hand
Google describes two ways: match the address against its published IP lists, or check its DNS with the host command:
- Run a reverse lookup on the address from your log:
host 66.249.66.1returnscrawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.com. - Check that the name ends in googlebot.com, google.com or googleusercontent.com (see below for googleusercontent.com).
- Run a forward lookup on that name:
host crawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.commust return the same address, 66.249.66.1. Anyone can set a reverse name on their own address, so only the round trip proves it.
The same round trip works for Bingbot (names ending in search.msn.com), Applebot (applebot.apple.com) and Yandex (yandex.ru, yandex.net and yandex.com). Our reverse DNS lookup shows the first step for any address.
One detail: this check does not accept every googleusercontent.com name. Google Cloud addresses, which anyone can rent, carry names such as 1.0.83.34.bc.googleusercontent.com, so that domain alone would let a rented server pass as Google. Google’s own table names gae.googleusercontent.com for its user-triggered fetchers, and that is the subdomain the check accepts, along with googlebot.com and google.com.
What to Do With a Fake
- Block or rate-limit it by IP address, not by user agent. Blocking the Googlebot user agent would shut out the real Googlebot too.
- Do not rely on robots.txt. The robots.txt standard (RFC 9309) says its rules are not a form of access authorization: well-behaved crawlers follow them, and a fake simply ignores them.
- Look at the address. The IP reputation check shows whether it is a datacenter, a proxy or on abuse lists, and the IP lookup shows its network and abuse contact.
For more on telling automated traffic from people, see our guide to bot detection and the glossary entry on web crawler abuse.
AI Crawlers: GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot
The AI companies publish their crawler addresses as lists, and this check loads them: OpenAI’s GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot and OAI-AdsBot (OpenAI’s bot page), Anthropic’s crawlers, Perplexity’s PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User, and Common Crawl’s CCBot. This check verifies them by those lists only. An address that sends a GPTBot user agent from outside OpenAI’s lists is not OpenAI’s crawler.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Googlebot’s IP address range?
Google publishes them as JSON lists: common crawlers such as Googlebot, special crawlers such as AdsBot, and user-triggered fetchers. They change over time, so check an address against the current lists rather than a copied range. This check loads all five of Google’s lists every day and tells you which one, if any, holds the address.
How do I know if Googlebot is real?
Check its address, not its user agent. Paste the IP from your log into this check, or run host on the address and then on the name it returns: a real Googlebot’s name ends in googlebot.com or google.com and resolves back to the same address. A user agent that says Googlebot proves nothing on its own.
What is a fake Googlebot?
A client that sends Googlebot’s user agent from an address Google does not use. It is usually a scraper, a spam bot or a scanner hoping a site treats it like Google’s crawler. Block it by address; blocking the Googlebot user agent would also block the real crawler.
What IP addresses does GPTBot use?
OpenAI publishes GPTBot’s addresses as a JSON list, with separate lists for ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot and OAI-AdsBot. This check loads all four daily and verifies OpenAI’s crawlers against them. An address outside the lists that claims to be GPTBot is not one of OpenAI’s published crawler addresses.
Does robots.txt stop fake bots?
No. Robots.txt is a request that well-behaved crawlers follow, not an access control, and RFC 9309 says so. A fake crawler ignores it, so you need to block its address at the server, firewall or CDN, after checking that the address is not the real crawler’s.
Can I check a crawler without its user agent?
Yes. Enter just the address, and the check says which operator’s crawler it is, if it is on a published list or has a documented crawler hostname that resolves back. Add the user agent to test what the client claimed to be: that is how a fake shows up.
Which crawlers can this check verify?
The ones whose operators publish an IP list or document their crawler hostnames: Google, Microsoft (Bingbot), Apple, Yandex, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, DuckDuckGo, Common Crawl, Ahrefs, UptimeRobot, Pingdom, and the Stripe and GitHub webhooks. The table on this page lists each with its method.
Does this check work for IPv6 addresses?
Yes. Enter an IPv4 or IPv6 address from your log. The published lists include IPv6 ranges where the operator lists them, Google’s among them, and the reverse DNS check works the same way for both: the name behind the address must belong to the operator and resolve back to the same address.
Related Tools
To look closer at a visitor, the reverse DNS lookup shows the hostname behind any address, the user agent tool decodes what a browser or bot says it is, and the IP reputation check scores the address across abuse, proxy and datacenter lists.
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