Quattr MCP at work · Server logs
How do you verify Googlebot traffic is real?
To verify Googlebot traffic, check each request's IP address against Google's published IP ranges; the name in the request header is a text field anyone can type. Server logs give you the request-by-request record to test. In the video, 83% of requests claiming to be Googlebot failed that check.
The recording below is the whole workflow: 3 ordinary questions, asked in an AI chat with Quattr connected.
Most of the Googlebot in your logs is not Google.
◐ Recreated from an anonymized sessionVerify your own Googlebot traffic
This run
In this video, it checks 1.9 million requests claiming to be Googlebot against Google's published IP ranges.
What the run returned
The numbers set the scope of the problem; the decision names the work that moves it.
Run the same analysis in a Quattr-connected AI chat
Three prompts, copied exactly as written; the video shows what comes back.
Requires the Quattr MCP connection to read your organization's data. The prompt alone will not return your numbers.
- Prompt 1 Our servers are getting hammered by Googlebot. Is it actually Google?
- Prompt 2 So what is the real Googlebot spending its 327,052 visits on?
- Prompt 3 Give me the worklist, ordered by fetches we get back.
How Quattr produced the answer
An ordinary question, answered from your own named sources.
Quattr MCP is the read-only bridge between your AI client and Quattr's connected search data and analytical tools. Agents and Skills turn those tools into repeatable search work.
How the Quattr MCP works → See these sources joined in one answer →
How do you check who is really crawling you?
Five parts of doing it right; each with what you will see and the move that follows.
01Treat the name in your logs as a claim
The Googlebot name in a request is a text field, and any scraper can type it to slip past blocks and rate limits. You will see far more requests wearing the name than Google could plausibly send. The move: never trust or block by name alone; the name only tells you which requests need checking.
02Verify every request against Google's IP ranges
Google publishes the exact IP ranges Googlebot crawls from, so every request can be checked mechanically instead of guessed at. You will see your claimed Googlebot traffic split cleanly into verified requests and pretenders. The move: run the check over a full month of server logs, request by request, so the split is a number you can act on.
03Send the pretenders to the firewall list
Fake crawlers burn server money and pollute every report built on your logs. You will see scrapers hitting expensive pages at machine speed under a borrowed name. The move: hand the verified pretender list to whoever runs your firewall, because blocking them is now a decision backed by evidence.
04Read where the real Googlebot goes
Google gives each site a limited amount of crawling attention, and what it fetches decides which pages stay fresh in search. You will see verified fetches split between pages that can earn a click and parameter copies, buried pages and dead ends that never will. The fix: group the fetches by what was fetched and put a share on each group, so the waste has a size.
05Order the fixes by fetches reclaimed
Most of the waste falls to a few cheap fixes, and ranking them by reclaimed fetches keeps the work worth doing. You will see one robots rule, an afternoon of internal linking and a redirect cleanup cover most of it. The fix: start with the biggest reclaim for the least effort, often a single line in robots, and let the freed attention flow back to pages that earn.
Transcriptmachine-transcribed · corrected for product terms
0There is a line in every server lock that everyone trusts and nobody checks.
6It says Googlebot.
8Today, we check it.
10The server bill says Googlebot is hammering us day and night.
15So we ask the question directly.
17Is it actually Google?
20It takes every request claiming the name and checks it against Google's own published IP ranges, one by one.
301.9 million requests wore the name in July.
35Only 327,000 of them were telling the truth.
4083% are pretenders, scrapers wearing Google's name because the name is just a text field and you are serving all of them for free.
51The pretenders are a firewall conversation.
55The real question is what the genuine visits are being spent on.
1:00It sorts the verified fetches into pages that can earn a click and pages that never will.
1:07And less than half of Google's real attention landed on pages that matter.
1:12The rest went to junk.
1:15Parameter variations of the same pages. Pages buried six clicks deep and dead ends.
1:21More than half of a finite budget spent where it can never earn a ranking.
1:27Which brings us to the useful part.
1:30The work list ordered by how much of Google's attention each fix wins back.
1:36It ranks the fixes by the share of Google's monthly visits each one would reclaim.
1:43118,000 fetches back from one rule in robots.
1:48The whole list reclaims more than half the wasted budget.
1:52Google decides how much attention your site gets.
1:56You decide where that attention goes.
1:58And now the pretenders are a list your firewall team can act on.
2:04One log line, checked instead of trusted.
2:07That is the Quattr MCP.
2:09It verifies who is really at your door and shows where their time actually goes.
Frequently asked questions
Were the numbers in the video real?
This video is recreated from an anonymized session: the interaction is faithful to a real run on a connected account, and the figures shown have been changed or are illustrative rather than a customer’s own numbers.
Can the Quattr MCP verify Googlebot traffic on my site?
Yes. Connect Quattr to your AI chat once, then paste the three prompts above. The same sequence runs on your own logs: every claimed Googlebot request verified by IP, the real fetches sorted by where they went, and a worklist ordered by fetches reclaimed.
How does it verify that a request is really Google?
Google publishes the IP ranges Googlebot crawls from. Every request in your server logs that claims the name is checked against those ranges, request by request, and the card reports how many matched and how many did not. Nothing is sampled or estimated; the counts come from the logs themselves.
Where do these prompts run?
In any AI chat that can use connectors (the standard is called MCP). The prompt never names Quattr; the connection is what routes the question to your data, which is why it reads like an ordinary question.
What data can the Quattr MCP read?
Search Console clicks, impressions and rankings, web analytics, paid search, search market share against competitors, AI visibility across assistants, and Core Web Vitals. Every answer is pulled live from the connected account, so the numbers match what your dashboards show.
Verify your own Googlebot traffic
Connect Quattr once and these prompts check every request in your logs against Google's published IP ranges and rank the fixes by fetches reclaimed.
Read-only · OAuth 2.1 · existing Quattr permissions · no API keys