Detect Googlebot visits using nginx - Rocketeers app

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Detect Googlebot visits using nginx
===================================

### [\#Nginx](https://rocketeersapp.com/knowledge/nginx)

How to detect when and how often Googlebot visits your website using a few configuration lines in nginx.

 Published by [Mark van Eijk](https://rocketeersapp.com/author/mark-van-eijk) on November 18, 2024 · 1 minute read

1. [Detecting Googlebot](#content-detecting-googlebot)
2. [Logging the requests](#content-logging-the-requests)

[\#](#content-detecting-googlebot "Permalink")Detecting Googlebot
-----------------------------------------------------------------

It's very easy to detect the Googlebut using the user agent in nginx, here we use the `map` directive to set the variable `$googlebot` to `yes` or keep it empty depending on the given user agent:

 ```
map $http_user_agent $googlebot {
    default "";
    "~*googlebot" "yes";
}

```

[\#](#content-logging-the-requests "Permalink")Logging the requests
-------------------------------------------------------------------

When `$googlebot` is filled, we want to log the request in a log file. This can be done using the `access_log` directive:

 ```
access_log /var/www/logs/googlebot.log bots if=$googlebot;

```

That's it!

You can read here [how you can log multiple bots](/log-bot-requests-nginx) how to log multiple bots for your virtual host in nginx.

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