Verify a bot
Is the “Googlebot” or “GPTBot” in your logs real? Enter its IP address, its user agent, or both. We check the address against the lists the operators publish and against reverse DNS, because a user agent can say anything.
Checking a whole log? Paste it into the log checker: it reads the user agents in your browser and flags addresses that claim to be a crawler they are not. The log never leaves your device.
The lists we check against
Many bot checkers trust the user agent, or use address lists that are months old. We download each operator's own list every 6 hours and compare addresses with our copy. Operators also date their lists, and some dates are old: we show both, so you can judge.
| List | Proves | Entries | Our copy | Operator's date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google common crawlers (Googlebot) | Googlebot | 317 | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
| Google special-case crawlers (e.g. AdsBot) | Google special-case crawlers | 272 | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
| Google user-triggered fetchers | Google user-triggered fetchers | 1612 | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
| Bingbot | Bingbot | 29 | Nov 13, 2026 | Jan 3, 2024 |
| Applebot | Applebot | 24 | Nov 13, 2026 | Sep 15, 2026 |
| DuckDuckBot | DuckDuckBot | 486 | Nov 13, 2026 | Sep 1, 2026 |
| OpenAI OAI-SearchBot | OAI-SearchBot | 39 | Nov 13, 2026 | Jan 2, 2026 |
| PerplexityBot | PerplexityBot | 13 | Nov 13, 2026 | Oct 28, 2026 |
| Anthropic crawlers (ClaudeBot, Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot) | Claude-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Claude-User | 14 | Nov 13, 2026 | Oct 20, 2026 |
| Amazon Amzn-SearchBot | Amzn-SearchBot | 816 | Nov 13, 2026 | Sep 8, 2026 |
| OpenAI GPTBot | GPTBot | 18 | Nov 13, 2026 | Sep 22, 2026 |
| Common Crawl CCBot | CCBot | 5 | Nov 13, 2026 | Aug 11, 2026 |
| Amazonbot | Amazonbot | 1292 | Nov 13, 2026 | Sep 8, 2026 |
| OpenAI ChatGPT-User | ChatGPT-User | 237 | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 6, 2026 |
| Perplexity-User | Perplexity-User | 10 | Nov 13, 2026 | Oct 28, 2026 |
| Amazon Amzn-User | Amzn-User | 1023 | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 4, 2025 |
| AhrefsBot and AhrefsSiteAudit | AhrefsBot | 81 | Nov 13, 2026 | not dated |
These bots publish no addresses, so they can only be recognised by their user agent, which proves nothing: meta-webindexer, meta-externalagent, Bytespider, Timpibot, FacebookBot, meta-externalfetcher, cohere-ai, SemrushBot, DotBot, MJ12bot, facebookexternalhit, Diffbot, omgili.
What this tool does
Bots announce themselves in the user agent, but that is just text: a scraper can call itself Googlebot or GPTBot in one line of code. What it can't fake is where the request comes from.
So this tool checks the address. Most large operators publish the IP ranges their crawlers use; we download those lists every 6 hours. Some also give their crawler addresses reverse-DNS names under their own domain; we look the name up and check that it points back to the same address.
Give a user agent and an address together for a verdict: verified, fake, a real bot using another bot's name, or not verifiable because the operator publishes nothing to check against.
How to read the results
- Verified: the address is in the operator's own list, or its reverse-DNS name is under the operator's domain and points back to the address.
- Fake: the user agent names a bot that publishes its addresses, and this address isn't one of them.
- Can't be verified: the bot publishes no addresses, so the user agent is all there is. That is not evidence either way.
- The lists table shows when we last downloaded each list and the date the operator gives it. An old operator date means the operator hasn't updated it, not that our copy is old.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just trust the user agent?
Because anyone can send any user agent. Scrapers often pretend to be Googlebot because many sites let it through. The address can't be faked for a completed web request.
What does “forward-confirmed” reverse DNS mean?
Whoever controls an address can give it any reverse-DNS name, even one ending in googlebot.com. Looking that name up again and getting the same address back proves the operator of the domain agrees, because only it controls that domain.
Why can't some bots be verified?
Their operators publish neither IP ranges nor reverse-DNS names. Then the user agent is the only sign, and it proves nothing. We say so instead of guessing.
Is my query stored?
No. The address is compared with our copy of the lists and looked up in DNS and the registries, like any IP check. We keep no record of what you check.
Can I check many addresses at once?
Yes: paste a server log into the log checker. It reads the user agents in your browser and flags addresses that claim to be a crawler they are not. Our sources are on the data sources page.