In short. GoogleOther-Image fetches public image URLs and obeys robots.txt crawl preferences, which Google associates with no specific product.

Definition: As of October 2026, GoogleOther-Image is Google's crawler optimized for fetching publicly accessible image URLs within the GoogleOther crawler family. Google documents robots.txt controls for its crawling and states that those preferences affect no specific product.

Key facts

Google's common crawlers documentation lists GoogleOther-Image/1.0 as its HTTP user-agent string and recognizes both GoogleOther-Image and GoogleOther as robots.txt tokens.
Google's robots.txt specification limits each file's rules to the host, protocol and port where that file is served.
Google's request verification documentation provides reverse and forward DNS checks, plus published IP ranges for automated verification.

What does GoogleOther-Image collect?

Google's common crawler list describes GoogleOther as a generic crawler that various product teams may use to fetch public content. Its example is a one-off crawl for internal research and development. GoogleOther-Image specializes that family in public image URLs.

The same documentation assigns image-related Search controls to a separate crawler, Googlebot-Image. Preferences addressed to Googlebot-Image affect Google Images and Search features that present images, logos and favicons. For a website owner, the choice of crawler token therefore determines which documented activity a robots.txt rule addresses.

GoogleOther-Image belongs to Google's common crawlers, which obey robots.txt rules during automatic crawling. Its documented request identifier is:

GoogleOther-Image/1.0

How can a website control its image crawling?

A robots.txt file contains rules identifying which crawlers may access which URL paths. Google's robots.txt specification defines User-agent as the crawler selector and Disallow as the rule for paths that crawler must not access. The following group applies that syntax to GoogleOther-Image across the site's URL paths:

User-agent: GoogleOther-Image
Disallow: /

Google's crawler reference also recognizes the broader GoogleOther token for this crawler. Its image-specific example uses disallow: /archive/moon.jpg, showing how a rule can target an image path.

The robots.txt file belongs in the site's top-level directory. Because its scope follows the host, protocol and port, images served from another hostname need rules on that hostname. When reviewing existing rules, the most specific matching user-agent group takes precedence; Google does not combine that group with the global User-agent: * group.

How can a request be checked?

The HTTP user-agent string identifies the crawler's stated identity. Google's common crawler documentation warns that this string can be spoofed.

Google's verification procedure starts with a reverse DNS lookup on the requesting IP address recorded in server logs. For common crawlers, the documented hostname patterns end in .googlebot.com. A forward lookup of the returned hostname must resolve back to the original IP address. For automated checks, the documentation points to common-crawlers.json, the published address ranges for common crawlers.

FAQ

Can I use GoogleOther rules for GoogleOther-Image?

Yes. Google's crawler reference lists both tokens for GoogleOther-Image. If you add a more specific GoogleOther-Image group, Google's robots.txt group-selection rules determine which group applies.

Where should I put rules for images on a separate hostname?

Place the rules in the top-level robots.txt file on the hostname serving those images. Google's robots.txt specification states that rules apply only to the host, protocol and port where the file is hosted.

Sources

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