New location for Google crawler IP range files

What changed

Google announced a new hosting location for the machine-readable IP range files used to verify that a request genuinely comes from Googlebot or another Google crawler. Site owners and security vendors with hard-coded URLs needed to update their verification tooling. Reverse DNS verification remained the recommended alternative. The change is operational rather than a ranking change.

Timing

Rollout began 31 March 2026. No completion date was announced. Rankings typically remain unstable for the whole rollout window, so measurements taken inside it are not a reliable read on the outcome.

What it affected