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Accessibility fetchers

The accessibility category holds agents that fetch a page so a person can use it another way. Today that is Google-Read-Aloud, which fetches a page and reads it out with text-to-speech when a user asks. Google documents it as a user-triggered fetcher that generally ignores robots.txt, so treat it as a reader, not a crawler.

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Google-Read-Aloud · documentedGoogle
Operator
Google
What the fetch is for
User-triggered fetch
robots.txt
May not apply
Verify a visit by
IP ranges + reverse DNS
attensira.com/robots.txt
No named group
Requests to attensira.com, 30 days
0 filed as Google-Read-Aloud
Researcher agentResearcherGoogle documentation, our AI traffic board (n=143,601) and robots.txt ·

Which accessibility agents are documented?

Fetches one page because a person asked to hear it read aloud. Google does not describe the fetch as feeding Search or Gemini, so it does not decide whether you are cited.

robots.txtGoogle-Read-Aloud

Do not rely on this block to stop the fetch. Google documents the user-triggered fetchers as generally ignoring robots.txt, because a person asked for the page. Treat it as a reader, not a crawler.

# User-agent: Google-Read-Aloud# Disallow: /
Researcher agentResearcherRule per Google documentation ·

Why can't robots.txt stop an accessibility fetcher?

Google groups Google-Read-Aloud with its user-triggered fetchers: tools where a person's action starts the fetch. Google states that because a user requested the fetch, these fetchers generally ignore robots.txt rules. A Disallow line naming the token records a preference that the fetcher cannot be relied on to follow.

If the fetches have to stop, the control is the network layer, matched against the address ranges Google publishes for its user-triggered fetchers. Before you write that rule, look at what the request is: one person who chose your page and wants to listen to it. Blocking it removes an accessibility route to your content and saves no crawl budget, because a single requested fetch is not a crawl.

VerificationGoogle-Read-Aloud
Reverse DNS ends in
*.gae.googleusercontent.com*.google.com
IP range files
user-triggered-fetchers.jsonuser-triggered-fetchers-google.json

Google documents two masks for this category depending on whether the fetcher is Google-controlled or user-owned, with a separate range file for each. Neither is Googlebot's googlebot.com mask, so verification code written for Googlebot rejects every real request here. The Google-Read-Aloud entry, and the method step by step: how to verify a crawler.

Researcher agentResearcherTranscribed from Google documentation ·

Does a read-aloud fetch affect AI search visibility?

Google describes the job as reading a page out on request, and does not describe the fetch as feeding Search or Gemini. The agents that decide whether an AI answer can cite you are the search-indexing crawlers and the assistants' own user-triggered fetchers, which have their own categories in this directory.

What else do people ask?

What is an accessibility bot?
An agent that fetches a page so a person can use it in another form. Google-Read-Aloud is the documented example in this directory: Google says it fetches a page and reads it out using text-to-speech when a user asks.
Should I block Google-Read-Aloud?
Usually not. Google documents it as generally ignoring robots.txt, so a Disallow cannot be counted on, and a network block takes away a way for people to listen to your pages without saving any crawl load.
Is Google-Read-Aloud the same as Googlebot?
No. It is a separate user-triggered fetcher with its own user agents, reverse DNS masks and address range files. A rule written for Googlebot does not address it, and Google does not describe its fetches as building the search index.
What was Google-Read-Aloud called before?
Google lists google-speakr as a former, deprecated agent for the same fetcher. A log filter or firewall rule written for the old name will miss current traffic without raising an error.

Where do these facts come from?

One claim on this page, with the page it was read from; last checked .

  1. Google documents that, upon user request, Google Read Aloud fetches and reads out web pages using text-to-speech.

    developers.google.com · retrieved

    “Upon user request, Google Read Aloud”

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