NotebookLM: what it is, who runs it, and how to allow or block it

NotebookLM is a crawler run by Google. It reads pages at the moment a person asks a question, to answer it. Its name in robots.txt, how it shows up in server logs, whether its identity can be checked, and how to allow or refuse it on each platform.

This response

You are ClaudeBot (Anthropic). Citable recognised you as an AI agent, so this is https://getcitable.in/crawlers/notebooklm with the UI removed — the content only. A browser asking for the same address gets the full designed page.

What NotebookLM is

NotebookLM is a crawler run by Google. It reads pages at the moment a person asks a question, to answer it.

Should you refuse it?

NotebookLM fetches a page because a person asked about it. Refusing it means the answer that person gets is written without your page.

robots.txt is a request. A crawler that honours it stays out; nothing in the file stops one that does not. What is enforced is what the server or the edge in front of it refuses.

Is a request really NotebookLM?

Google publishes the addresses its crawlers fetch from. Citable checks the connecting address of every read that claims to be NotebookLM against those lists: inside them the read is recorded as verified, outside them as unverified.

Allowing or refusing NotebookLM in robots.txt

Add one group for each name it answers to (Google-NotebookLM, NotebookLM). “Allow: /” lets it read the site and “Disallow: /” refuses it.

A group that names a crawler replaces the * group for that crawler; it does not add to it. Paths the * group closes are open to a crawler with its own group unless they are repeated there.

Refuse NotebookLM:

User-agent: Google-NotebookLM
Disallow: /

User-agent: NotebookLM
Disallow: /

Allow NotebookLM:

User-agent: Google-NotebookLM
Allow: /

User-agent: NotebookLM
Allow: /

Where the rule for NotebookLM goes, platform by platform

Also run by Google

Questions

What is NotebookLM?

NotebookLM is a crawler run by Google. It reads pages at the moment a person asks a question, to answer it.

Who runs NotebookLM?

Google. It also reads websites as Google-Extended, Gemini-Deep-Research, Google-Agent, GoogleOther; each has its own name in robots.txt and can be allowed or refused separately.

How do I allow or block NotebookLM in robots.txt?

Add one group for each name it answers to (Google-NotebookLM, NotebookLM). “Allow: /” lets it read the site and “Disallow: /” refuses it. A group that names a crawler replaces the * group for that crawler; it does not add to it. Paths the * group closes are open to a crawler with its own group unless they are repeated there.

Should I block NotebookLM?

NotebookLM fetches a page because a person asked about it. Refusing it means the answer that person gets is written without your page.

How do I see NotebookLM in my server logs?

In an access log NotebookLM appears as a user agent containing “Google-NotebookLM” or “NotebookLM”.

How do I know a request is really NotebookLM?

Google publishes the addresses its crawlers fetch from. Citable checks the connecting address of every read that claims to be NotebookLM against those lists: inside them the read is recorded as verified, outside them as unverified.

About Citable

Citable strips the UI from a website for AI agents and serves them only the content.

When an AI agent — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or any of the 81 that Citable recognises — opens a page, Citable removes the theme, scripts, navigation and layout and serves only the content: the same facts, at the same URL, on the site's own domain. People and Google still get the full designed page.

How it works: https://getcitable.in/how-it-works · Summary for AI agents: https://getcitable.in/llms.txt


Source: https://getcitable.in/crawlers/notebooklm · Citable · Run the free audit · llms.txt · getcitable@gmail.com