Overview
GoogleMessages is a link preview bot from Google used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews, and page metadata fetching.
Its primary user-agent pattern is GoogleMessages; related patterns include Google Messages link preview fetcher.
GoogleMessages is verified with High confidence. The identity type is Official Documented, and the evidence basis is official operator documentation.
GoogleMessages has context-dependent robots.txt behavior because some requests may be user-triggered, product-triggered, or handled differently by the operator.
GoogleMessages can usually be allowed after confirming the source and monitoring request volume.
Identity
- User-Agent
GoogleMessages- Aliases
- Google Messages link preview fetcher
- HTTP Agent Examples
GoogleMessages- Robots.txt Token
GoogleMessages- Identity Type
- Official Documented
- Evidence Method
- Verify GoogleMessages by matching `GoogleMessages` to Google evidence, then checking reverse DNS, source-network ownership, signed request data, or published crawler documentation when available.
Classification
- Type
- Preview
- Kind
- Preview
- Family
- Purpose
- preview
Behavior and handling
- Common Use
- GoogleMessages is used for link unfurling, rich-card generation, social previews, messaging previews, and page metadata fetching.
- Detection Notes
- GoogleMessages traffic is primarily detected by the `GoogleMessages` user-agent pattern; related patterns include `Google Messages link preview fetcher`. Compare source IPs, reverse DNS, request paths, and crawl cadence with Google infrastructure before trusting the traffic.
- Respects robots.txt
- Depends
- Spoofing Risk
- GoogleMessages has medium spoofing risk because the user-agent can be copied, even when the bot has strong source or documentation support.
- Risk
- Safe
- Recommended Handling
- Depends
Rules and controls
- Robots.txt Snippet
# This rule may not apply to user-triggered or special-purpose requests. User-agent: GoogleMessages Disallow: /