What APIs-Google does
APIs-Google is the user agent Google APIs use to deliver push notification messages, so developers can be notified when a resource changes instead of polling Google's servers. It sends an HTTPS POST request for each notification to the endpoint the developer registered, and if delivery fails with a possibly temporary error it retries with exponential backoff over up to several days. Receiving endpoints must present a valid SSL certificate; self-signed, untrusted, or revoked certificates are rejected. Its traffic volume depends on how many notifications are registered, how often the watched resources change, and retry rates.
How to control APIs-Google
Target APIs-Google in your robots.txt with the APIs-Google token. Rules apply per bot, so you can allow this one while blocking others, or the reverse.
Allow APIs-Google
User-agent: APIs-Google
Allow: /Block APIs-Google
User-agent: APIs-Google
Disallow: /Legitimate APIs-Google requests can be verified with a reverse DNS lookup on the source IP, which should resolve to the googlebot.com or google.com domain.
How to identify APIs-Google
Temso identifies APIs-Googletraffic by matching the request's User-Agent header against this pattern. User-agent strings can be spoofed, so treat a match as an indication, not proof.
APIs-GoogleAPIs-Google FAQ
What is APIs-Google?
APIs-Google is the user agent used by Google APIs to deliver push notification messages to endpoints that developers register, sending an HTTPS POST request per notification and retrying failed deliveries with exponential backoff.
How do I block APIs-Google?
Add a robots.txt group with "User-agent: APIs-Google" followed by "Disallow: /"; it does not follow rules written for the Googlebot user agent, and there may be a delay before it discovers robots.txt changes. Alternatively, unregister the push notifications, which is often managed by the administrator of the receiving subdomain.
About Operational Bots
Monitoring, security scanning, link previews, webhooks, and feed fetchers: the utility traffic that keeps integrations and shared links working.
Most of this traffic is service-critical or user-triggered. Webhooks and previews don't follow robots.txt, and blocking them tends to break things you rely on.
