Googlebot Location May Vary Beyond Declared Mountain View Address

Google's crawlers, known as Googlebot, often declare their location as Mountain View, California. However, according to recent statements from Google representatives, this may not always be the case.

In a discussion on Bluesky, Gary Illyes revealed that while IP locations are declared as US-based and Mountain View in most cases, actual egress points can vary. He provided an example where an IP assigned to a cluster in Atlanta would have its egress point also in Atlanta.

This means that Google crawlers may be coming from different locations than what they declare. The company has data centers all over the world, and this flexibility allows them to crawl locally from various regions if necessary.

Illyes' statement was in response to a question about the physical location of Googlebot. John Mueller, also from Google, had mentioned earlier that he believed the physical location of crawlers varies. The discussion highlights the complexities of tracking and understanding Google's crawling behavior.