What is Google-Extended?

A robots.txt product token that controls whether content Google has crawled may be used to train future Gemini models and to ground answers in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. It is not a crawler.

Does blocking Google-Extended remove my site from AI Overviews?

No. AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Google Search and use the Googlebot index. Google says Google-Extended does not affect inclusion or ranking in Search.

Is Google-Extended a crawler?

No. It has no separate user-agent string. Google's normal crawlers fetch the pages, and the token only controls how the content may be used.

Does Google-Extended affect my rankings?

No. Google states it does not affect a site's inclusion or ranking in Google Search.

Why can't I find Google-Extended in my server logs?

Because it never fetches anything. Requests come from Googlebot and other Google crawlers.

Canonical definition

Google-Extended – Definition (Not a Crawler)

Google-Extended is a robots.txt token, not a crawler. It controls whether content that Google has already crawled may be used for Gemini: to train future models and to ground answers in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. It does not affect Google Search, and it does not affect AI Overviews or AI Mode.

In one sentence

A switch for Gemini training and grounding – not for Google Search, and not for AI Overviews.

What Google-Extended controls

	Google-Extended
What it is	A product token in robots.txt. It has no own user-agent string in HTTP requests
Who fetches the pages	The normal Google crawlers, such as Googlebot
What a Disallow changes	Whether that content may help train future Gemini models and ground answers in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI
What it does not change	Crawling, indexing, ranking, AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search

Google says it directly: Google-Extended does not affect a site’s inclusion or ranking in Google Search. AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Search and are built from the Googlebot index.

The robots.txt rule

# Keep Google Search and AI Overviews. Opt out of Gemini training and grounding.
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

Because Google-Extended is its own group, the usual RFC 9309 rule applies: it does not inherit your User-agent: * lines. For a full opt-out, Disallow: / is all it needs.

Three mistakes we see on stores

Blocking it to leave AI Overviews. It does not work. To limit AI features in Search, use nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet or the Search generative AI setting in Search Console – see how to control AI Overviews.
Looking for it in the logs. You will never see a “Google-Extended” user agent. The fetches come from Googlebot.
Blocking Googlebot instead. That removes you from Google Search and its AI features at once.

Should a store block it?

Usually not. Blocking it means Gemini may know less about your products and may not use your pages to ground its answers in Gemini Apps. Block it when you have a reason to keep content out of model training – licensed text, for example – and accept that trade-off. Applebot-Extended is the same kind of token for Apple.

Questions

What is Google-Extended?: A robots.txt product token that controls whether content Google has crawled may be used to train future Gemini models and to ground answers in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI. It is not a crawler.
Does blocking Google-Extended remove my site from AI Overviews?: No. AI Overviews and AI Mode are part of Google Search and use the Googlebot index. Google says Google-Extended does not affect inclusion or ranking in Search.
Is Google-Extended a crawler?: No. It has no separate user-agent string. Google’s normal crawlers fetch the pages, and the token only controls how the content may be used.
Does Google-Extended affect my rankings?: No. Google states it does not affect a site’s inclusion or ranking in Google Search.
Why can’t I find Google-Extended in my server logs?: Because it never fetches anything. Requests come from Googlebot and other Google crawlers.

Sources

Checked 28 September 2026 against Google’s crawler documentation and AI features guidance.