There are numerous reports that Google may be using a more generic and undocumented Googlebot, Google crawler. The crawler user agent is just named "Google," and it is not listed in any of the documented crawlers that Google has provided.
Google's documention lists three categories of crawlers; common crawlers, special case crawlers and user triggered fetchers - none of which just list "Google" as the user agent's name.
But JC Chouinard posted an example of Google using Google as the user agent name, he posted this on X. At first I thought maybe someone else, not Google, was spoofing the name. But it doesn't seem to be the case.
Those two IPs were found so far today pic.twitter.com/R6xs3X7jqU
— JC Chouinard (@ChouinardJC) August 7, 2025
I saw this too https://t.co/LHA6qwvA4k
— Andrea Volpini (@cyberandy) August 8, 2025
It's Google - just checked. pic.twitter.com/NyRp48Wu7N
— Kyle Risley (@KyleRisley) August 8, 2025
For the bot "Google" discussed here, and the "pageburst" bot, they come from Google IPs.
— Malte Landwehr (@MalteLandwehr) August 8, 2025
Google lists their IP ranges for Googlebot and not all of those listed in these examples are in this list. So maybe it is someone spoofing Google?
I did ask Google's John Mueller last week to look into it but I did not hear back:
There are a number of people saying Gemini is not using the normal user agent - this is on X at x.com/ChouinardJC/... in case you didn't see it @johnmu.com
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) August 8, 2025 at 8:41 AM
If you see "Google" as bots in your log files, you should know you are not alone and it is not clear if it is Google or someone else pretending to be Google?
Forum discussion at X.
