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AI Crawlers

Google-Extended on Shopify

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What Google-Extended is and isn't

Google-Extended is a user-agent token Google uses to determine whether a site's content can be used to train Gemini and other Google generative AI products. Blocking Google-Extended in robots.txt does NOT affect classical Google Search — Googlebot is a separate user-agent. The opt-out applies only to AI training. AI Overviews uses the classical Google index, so blocking Google-Extended doesn't necessarily exclude a Shopify store from AI Overviews.

Google's common-crawlers reference1 documents Google-Extended's purpose. Shopify's editing-robots help page2 documents the robots.txt.liquid syntax to add the directive.

Google-Extended vs Googlebot

Two different bots, two different roles. Googlebot crawls for the classical Google Search index and powers AI Overviews. Google-Extended crawls for AI training. A Shopify merchant can allow Googlebot (mandatory for any SEO traffic) and block Google-Extended (training opt-out) at the same time — the two decisions are independent.

User-agentPurposeAffects classical SEO?
GooglebotClassical Search index + AI Overviews sourceYes — never block
Google-ExtendedGemini + other Google generative AI trainingNo — blocking is safe for classical SEO

The opt-out trade-off

Block Google-Extended → your store is excluded from Gemini's training corpus and other Google generative AI training. You may still surface in Gemini if Gemini fetches your page live during a conversation (similar to ChatGPT-User behavior). You retain full classical Google Search visibility because Googlebot is unaffected. The trade-off: future Gemini may not 'know' your brand as well as competitors who didn't block training, but current Gemini visibility from live-fetch and Catalog isn't lost.

Most stores benefit from allowing Google-Extended. Some prestige brands and IP-sensitive merchants choose to block to opt out of training. The block has no immediate SEO cost — only a long-term effect on next-gen model knowledge of the brand.

Google-Extended audit checklist

Four checks. The Google-Extended decision is deliberate; if the file doesn't reference it, the default is allow.

  1. Open theme code editor. Look for templates/robots.txt.liquid.
  2. Search for 'Google-Extended'. Note any Disallow rules.
  3. Confirm Googlebot is NOT blocked (mandatory for classical SEO).
  4. Decide: do you want your store in Gemini training? Yes = leave Google-Extended allowed. No = add Disallow.

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