AdsBot-Google

What is AdsBot-Google?

AdsBot-Google is a specialized web crawler operated by Google that evaluates websites for Google Ads (formerly AdWords) services. This legitimate bot is designed to assess landing page quality and relevance for advertisers using Google's advertising platform. Google created and maintains this bot as part of its advertising ecosystem, and it works alongside Google's other crawlers but with a specific focus on ad quality assessment.

The bot identifies itself in server logs with user agent strings like AdsBot-Google or more detailed variants such as AdsBot-Google-Mobile for mobile-specific crawling. These identifiers help website administrators distinguish this specialized crawler from Google's other bots like Googlebot.

AdsBot-Google works by analyzing landing pages to determine their quality, relevance, and user experience characteristics. Unlike Google's primary search crawlers that focus on indexing content for search results, AdsBot-Google specifically evaluates pages that advertisers link to in their Google Ads campaigns. This evaluation helps Google determine quality scores, which affect ad rankings and costs for advertisers.

Why is AdsBot-Google crawling my site?

If you notice AdsBot-Google visiting your website, it typically means your pages are being evaluated as part of Google Ads campaigns. This occurs when:

1. Your website is being used as a landing page for Google Ads campaigns (either by you or an affiliate marketing your products/services)
2. Google needs to assess or reassess the quality and relevance of these landing pages
3. There have been significant changes to your website that might affect landing page quality

The frequency of AdsBot-Google visits depends on your Google Ads activity. Sites actively running campaigns will see more frequent visits, especially after making changes to landing pages or when creating new ad campaigns. The crawling is authorized and legitimate as part of Google's advertising services, and helps ensure that ads lead to relevant, high-quality landing pages.

What is the purpose of AdsBot-Google?

AdsBot-Google serves the critical purpose of evaluating landing page quality for Google's advertising platform. This assessment directly impacts:

1. Quality Score: A metric Google uses to determine ad ranking and cost-per-click
2. Ad Rank: How prominently ads appear in search results
3. Cost: Higher quality landing pages can lead to lower costs for advertisers

For website owners who advertise through Google Ads, AdsBot-Google provides value by ensuring their landing pages are properly evaluated. Google uses this data to assess factors like page load speed, mobile-friendliness, relevance to the ad content, and overall user experience. This evaluation helps maintain the quality of Google's ad ecosystem by rewarding advertisers who provide good user experiences with better ad positions and potentially lower costs.

How do I block AdsBot-Google?

While blocking AdsBot-Google is possible, it's generally not recommended if you're running Google Ads campaigns, as it will prevent Google from properly evaluating your landing pages, which could negatively impact your ad performance and quality scores.

If you still wish to control AdsBot-Google's access, you can use the robots.txt file. AdsBot-Google respects robots.txt directives when crawling websites. To block AdsBot-Google completely, add the following to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: AdsBot-Google
Disallow: /

For mobile-specific crawling, you might also want to include:

User-agent: AdsBot-Google-Mobile
Disallow: /

If you only want to block access to specific sections of your site, you can specify particular directories:

User-agent: AdsBot-Google
Disallow: /private-folder/

Remember that blocking AdsBot-Google will prevent Google from evaluating the quality of your landing pages, which could result in lower quality scores, higher costs per click, and potentially poorer ad performance overall if you're running Google Ads campaigns. If you're experiencing excessive crawling that's affecting server performance, consider implementing a crawl rate limit through Google Search Console rather than blocking the bot entirely.