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Tuesday, March 15, 2016
As technology on the web changes, we periodically update the user agents we use for Googlebot.
Next month, we will be updating the smartphone user-agent of Googlebot:
Googlebot smartphone user-agent starting from April 18, 2016:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P)
AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.96 Mobile Safari/537.36
(compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html)
Today, we use the following smartphone user-agent for Googlebot:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_3 like Mac OS X)
AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12F70 Safari/600.1.4
(compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html)
We're updating the user-agent string so that our renderer can better understand pages
that use newer web technologies. Our renderer evolves over time and the user-agent
string indicates that it is becoming more similar to Chrome than Safari. To make sure your site
can be viewed properly by a wide range of users and browsers, we recommend using
feature detection
and progressive enhancement.
Our evaluation suggests that this user-agent change should have no effect on 99% of sites. The
most common reason a site might be affected is if it specifically looks for a particular Googlebot
user-agent string. User agent sniffing for Googlebot is not recommended and is
considered to be a form of cloaking.
Googlebot should be treated like any other browser.
If you believe your site may be affected by this update, we recommend checking your site with the
Fetch and Render Tool
in Search Console (which has been updated with the new user-agent string) or by
changing the user-agent string in Developer Tools in your browser (for example, via
Chrome Device Mode).
If you have any questions, we're always happy to answer them in our
Webmaster help forums.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGooglebot's smartphone user agent will be updated in April 2016 to better reflect modern web technologies.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe update is expected to have minimal impact on websites, affecting less than 1% of sites.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebsites that rely on user agent sniffing for Googlebot might be affected and should avoid this practice.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebmasters can test their sites with the Fetch and Render Tool or browser Developer Tools to ensure compatibility.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe updated user agent is based on Chrome instead of Safari to support newer web technologies used by Googlebot's renderer.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Googlebot's smartphone `user-agent` was updated on April 18, 2016, to better understand newer web technologies, becoming more Chrome-like. The update's impact is minimal for most sites unless they specifically check for a particular Googlebot `user-agent`. Google recommends using feature detection instead of `user-agent` sniffing, which is considered cloaking. Affected sites can use the Fetch and Render Tool or browser's Developer Tools to test.\n"],null,[]]
