What is Google-BusinessLinkVerification?

Google-BusinessLinkVerification is a bot in the security scanners category, operated by Google.

Bot name
Google-BusinessLinkVerification
Operator
Google
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
Google-BusinessLinkVerifi
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About Google-BusinessLinkVerification

To ensure business information on Google is accurate and trustworthy, we verify the links you provide

Security scanners probe sites for vulnerabilities, certificates and exposed services. Some are research projects, some are vendors you hired. Allow your own scanners and block the rest at the WAF.

Google-BusinessLinkVerification user agent

Sample user agent strings sent by Google-BusinessLinkVerification:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; Google-BusinessLinkVerification) Chrome/141.0.7390.122 Safari/537.36
  • Google-BusinessLinkVerification

Anyone can copy a user agent string. Transfon Security also checks where each request comes from, so a request that claims to be a known crawler but comes from the wrong network is treated as a fake, not as the real crawler.

How to block Google-BusinessLinkVerification in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether Google-BusinessLinkVerification follows robots.txt. Add a rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.

Block Google-BusinessLinkVerification from the whole site

User-agent: Google-BusinessLinkVerifi
Disallow: /

Block Google-BusinessLinkVerification from some folders

User-agent: Google-BusinessLinkVerifi
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /search

Allow Google-BusinessLinkVerification only on some folders

User-agent: Google-BusinessLinkVerifi
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /

Allow Google-BusinessLinkVerification and block other crawlers

User-agent: Google-BusinessLinkVerifi
Allow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Things to know

  • Each host needs its own file. Rules on www.example.com do not apply to shop.example.com.
  • A crawler obeys only the most specific group that names it. Once you add a User-agent: Google-BusinessLinkVerifi group, Google-BusinessLinkVerification ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take Google-BusinessLinkVerifi from Google-BusinessLinkVerification's user agent; check Google's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.
  • Crawlers cache robots.txt, so changes can take up to a day to apply. Disallow stops crawling but does not remove pages already collected or indexed.

Limits of robots.txt

  1. Google-BusinessLinkVerification may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that Google-BusinessLinkVerification follows it. Check your logs after adding a rule.
  2. The user agent could be fake. robots.txt matches the name a request claims. Anyone can send Google-BusinessLinkVerification's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Google's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real Google-BusinessLinkVerification from a fake one.

Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.

Who should care about Google-BusinessLinkVerification

Publishers

Allow Google-BusinessLinkVerification if it is a service you use, and keep its visits out of page views and ad requests either way.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

Google-BusinessLinkVerification is not a person. Exclude it from campaign and conversion data so reports reflect real visitors.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

Allow Google-BusinessLinkVerification only if it works for your store, and keep it away from cart and checkout.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

If Google-BusinessLinkVerification is a service you use, allow it on the endpoints it needs and block it elsewhere.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block Google-BusinessLinkVerification with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows Google-BusinessLinkVerification by name in the Top Bots report, so you can see how often it visits and which pages it reads. Block or allow it with a User Agent rule, or slow it down with a rate limit decision rule.

Transfon Security

Control Google-BusinessLinkVerification on your site

  • See every Google-BusinessLinkVerification visit and the pages it reads
  • Spot bots that fake trusted crawler names
  • Block, allow or rate limit Google-BusinessLinkVerification with one rule
  • Works with or without robots.txt support

Frequently asked questions

What is Google-BusinessLinkVerification?

Google-BusinessLinkVerification is a bot in the security scanners category, operated by Google. To ensure business information on Google is accurate and trustworthy, we verify the links you provide

Does Google-BusinessLinkVerification respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether Google-BusinessLinkVerification follows robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped, and block it by user agent if it did not.

How do I block Google-BusinessLinkVerification?

Add "User-agent: Google-BusinessLinkVerifi" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "Google-BusinessLinkVerifi" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.

Is robots.txt enough to block Google-BusinessLinkVerification?

No. robots.txt is voluntary, so Google-BusinessLinkVerification may not follow it, and anyone can send Google-BusinessLinkVerification's user agent, so a fake Google-BusinessLinkVerification ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.

Should I block Google-BusinessLinkVerification?

Security scanners probe sites for vulnerabilities, certificates and exposed services. Some are research projects, some are vendors you hired. Allow your own scanners and block the rest at the WAF.

Related bots

All security scanners · Full bot directory

See Which Bots Visit Your Site

Transfon Security identifies every bot in this directory in your traffic reports, flags fake search crawlers, and lets you allow, block or rate limit each bot.

Stay ahead of the publishing curve

Privacy, security, monetization, and performance insights. A few emails a month, no spam.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy.