User-triggered fetcher · A bot that fetches on user request
A user-triggered fetcher is a bot that visits a page only because a user asked for it in a product, for example an AI agent, a verification tool or a feed reader. Since a person requested the visit, these bots generally ignore robots.txt.
Standalone definition · 43 words
What Google calls user-triggered fetchers
Google separates them from common crawlers like Googlebot. Examples from its list: Google Site Verifier, Feedfetcher, Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) and Google-Agent. Their IPs are published in dedicated JSON files.
User-triggered fetchers of AI engines
Other players follow the same logic: OpenAI’s ChatGPT-User or Perplexity-User visit a page when a user asks a question that needs it. They are distinct from training or indexing bots like GPTBot or OAI-SearchBot.
How to handle user-triggered fetchers on your site
robots.txt is not enough to block them. Spot them in logs, verify their IPs, and make sure key pages load fast without blocking JavaScript, since they often read the page on the fly.
Frequently asked questions about User-triggered fetcher
Does a user-triggered fetcher index my page?
No. It reads the page for a specific request. Indexing is done by other bots.
Can you block them?
At server or firewall level, yes, but you then lose visits requested by real users.