Google-CloudVertexBot
Google documents Google-CloudVertexBot as a user-initiated fetch from Vertex AI grounding. It is not gemini.google.com in a browser, and it is not Googlebot.
- Operator
- Motif family
- google_ai
- Motif class
- User-requested fetch
- In Motif classifier
- Yes
- robots.txt
- Check Google's current crawler documentation
- Executes JavaScript
- No
- Verified in Motif
- Google publishes crawler IP ranges. Motif does not check them
What Motif will and will not claim
Motif classifies Google-CloudVertexBot as family google_ai, class user. Gemini first-touch traffic is still the gemini.google.com referrer on a real pageview.
Revenue
Do not fold Vertex fetches into Gemini visitors. Search Console queries stay aggregate evidence and never join this User-Agent to a person.
Vendor documentation
Start with the vendor page at https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers/list. Motif stores the controlled token from a self-reported User-Agent.
Google-CloudVertexBot User-Agent example
Google-CloudVertexBotAllow Google-CloudVertexBot in robots.txt
User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot
Allow: /Block Google-CloudVertexBot in robots.txt
User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot
Disallow: /Does Google-CloudVertexBot count as a visit in Motif?
No. If Google-CloudVertexBot hits the Motif tracker or collector it increments AI crawlers. It does not create a visitor and cannot win a recommendation.
Will Motif show Google-CloudVertexBot on my HTML pages?
Only if that client requested /m.js or POST /v1/events. HTML-only crawls of the origin never reach Motif. Saying otherwise would be a product lie.
Should I block Google-CloudVertexBot?
User-requested fetchers often ignore robots.txt because a person asked for the page. Blocking them in robots.txt may do nothing. They are still not visitors in Motif.