Googlebot Simulator
Enter a page’s address to fetch it as Googlebot does. See if it can be indexed, what’s in the HTML before JavaScript runs, and what search engines may miss.
Enter an address to fetch the page with Googlebot’s user agent and see what search engines read.
Four quick steps. Free, no sign-up. Up to 60 checks a day.
- 1
Enter the address. Paste the full address of any public page.
- 2
Pick the crawler. Googlebot Smartphone is what Google uses for most sites. Switch to Desktop to compare.
- 3
Read the report. See the status, any redirects, whether robots.txt or a noindex rule blocks the page, and plain notes on what to fix.
- 4
Look closer. Open the tabs for the headings, the text, the links, the images and the raw HTML Googlebot got.
Everything in the Googlebot Simulator. Everything search engines read from your page, on one screen.
Googlebot’s user agent. Our server asks for the page as Googlebot Smartphone or Desktop, so you see what a site sends to Google.
Indexable or not. Checks the status code, robots.txt rules for Googlebot, and noindex in the meta robots tag or the X-Robots-Tag header.
Status and redirects. The status code, every redirect on the way, and how long the page took to answer.
Before JavaScript. See the text and links in the HTML itself, and a warning when the page looks like it needs JavaScript to show its content.
Six views. Overview with title, description, canonical, hreflang, Open Graph and structured data, then headings, text, links, images and source.
Plain notes. Missing title, H1 or description, a canonical that points elsewhere, thin HTML, images without alt text, no viewport tag.
How Googlebot sees your page. Google reads your page in two passes. Knowing what happens in each helps you spot what it may miss.
First, the crawl
Googlebot asks your server for the page and gets back the HTML. Before that, it checks robots.txt. If a rule there blocks the page, Google never reads it.
Most sites are now crawled by Googlebot Smartphone, because Google indexes the mobile version of a page. If your mobile page has less content than your desktop one, the missing part may not count.
Then, the render
Google runs JavaScript later, in a second pass, and uses what it builds too. That pass can take time, and it doesn’t always load everything. Text, links and headings that are in the HTML from the start are the safest.
This simulator shows the HTML before JavaScript runs. If key content is missing here, check that it’s rendered on the server or in the page’s first HTML.
What stops a page being indexed
A status code that isn’t 200, a Disallow rule in robots.txt, or a noindex in the meta robots tag or the X-Robots-Tag header. A canonical tag that points to another page asks Google to index that page instead.
Note that robots.txt stops crawling, not indexing. To keep a page out of search, use noindex and let Google crawl it so it sees the rule.
What helps Google understand it
One clear H1, headings that outline the page, a title and meta description, descriptive alt text on images, and links with words that say where they go. Structured data helps Google show richer results.
Why results can differ from Google’s
Our request comes from our server, not from Google’s addresses. Some sites check that a visitor calling itself Googlebot really comes from Google, and may block or answer differently. For the final word, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.
Enter the page’s address above. The simulator fetches it with Googlebot’s user agent and shows the status, robots rules, headings, text, links and HTML it got back.
Yes, in a second pass after the crawl, but it can be delayed and doesn’t always load everything. Content that’s in the HTML from the start is the most reliable.
Common reasons are a robots.txt rule, a noindex tag or header, a status code other than 200, or a canonical pointing elsewhere. The simulator checks all of these.
They’re the same crawler with a different user agent. Google uses Smartphone for most sites, since it indexes the mobile version of pages.
Our request comes from our server, not Google’s, so sites that verify Googlebot by its address may answer differently. Search Console’s URL Inspection shows what Google itself got.
Yes. There’s no sign-up, and you can check up to 60 pages a day.
Yes. Writing Studio publishes posts as plain HTML with clear headings, alt text and internal links, so Googlebot gets everything on the first pass.
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