Googlebot Simulator
Enter a URL and see your page the way Google's crawler receives it: status code, redirects, robots.txt verdict, noindex, canonical and title — side by side with what a normal browser gets.
We fetch the page twice — once as Googlebot Smartphone, once as a desktop Chrome browser — and read its robots.txt. No account needed.
Can Google reach it?
HTTP status, the full redirect chain (up to 5 hops, like a sensible crawler), response time and HTML size.
Is Google allowed in?
Your robots.txt evaluated for Googlebot — with the exact line that decides — plus meta robots and X-Robots-Tag noindex/nofollow.
What will Google index?
Canonical, title, meta description, H1 and the text in the raw HTML — compared against what a normal browser receives.
Why simulate Googlebot?
Most indexing problems are invisible in a browser. A stray noindex left over from staging, a robots.txt rule written too broadly, a canonical pointing at the wrong URL or a redirect chain that loops — the page looks fine to you, and Google quietly drops it.
Requesting the page as Googlebot surfaces those problems in one pass. Because we fetch it as a regular browser too, you can also see whether your server, CDN or a plugin treats the crawler differently from your visitors.
What this tool can and can't tell you
We fetch the raw HTML only. Google renders JavaScript in a second pass, so if your content is built client-side the simulator will show very little text — we flag that as a likely JavaScript-rendered page rather than pretending to render it.
Our requests use Googlebot Smartphone's user-agent but come from our servers, not Google's. Treat the result as a fast first check, and confirm anything surprising with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. For a longer walkthrough of crawl testing, read Googlebot Tester: See Your Site Exactly as Google Does.
Frequently asked questions
What does a Googlebot simulator do?
It requests your page with Googlebot's user-agent and reports what comes back: the HTTP status, every redirect, whether robots.txt lets Googlebot in, any noindex or nofollow directive, the canonical URL, title, meta description and H1. It also fetches the page as a normal browser so you can see whether Google gets different content.
Is this exactly what Google sees?
It is what Googlebot receives on its first request, before JavaScript runs. Google renders pages later in a headless Chrome, so content injected by JavaScript won't appear here. Our requests also come from BoltSEO's servers rather than Google's IP ranges, so a firewall that verifies Googlebot may answer us differently. For the definitive view, use URL Inspection in Google Search Console.
Why does my site return 403 to the Googlebot user-agent?
Usually because a CDN or security plugin blocks requests that claim to be Googlebot but don't come from Google's network — a sensible defence against fake crawlers. Real Googlebot is typically let through. Confirm with Search Console's URL Inspection tool; if Google also gets 403, whitelist Googlebot by its verified IP ranges or reverse DNS, not by user-agent.
How does the robots.txt check work?
We fetch your robots.txt and apply Google's rules: the most specific user-agent group wins (a googlebot group overrides *), the longest matching Allow or Disallow pattern decides, Allow wins a tie, and * and $ wildcards are supported. A missing robots.txt (404) means everything is allowed; a server error means Google pauses crawling.
What counts as cloaking?
Cloaking is serving search engines materially different content from what visitors see, in order to manipulate rankings — it violates Google's spam policies. Small differences (a cookie banner, a rotating promo) are normal. If the title, status code or amount of text differs sharply between Googlebot and a browser, find out why before Google does.