Google Proxy?

[JamesSC]

Who or what lives behind those walls?

How do you handle it in re SEO vs. scrapers, etc.?

[goodroi]

I'm unclear what you are asking. Where are you seeing google proxy and in what context?

[JamesSC]

Sorry. Maybe I'm trying to ask too much. I saw an old thread here from IncrediBill and I just assumed Google Proxy was an established known quantity.

I have a WordPress blog and I'm suddenly seeing traffic from Google Proxy in patterns like regular humans for the most part, but there were a few entries suggestive of scraping.

My question really is, now in 2020, how do the people here regard Google Proxy for the most part? Like a server farm like AWS? Like a VPN for shy people? Innocently? As a cover for wrongdoers?

Also, and why I placed it here, does anyone worry about negative Google SEO for blocking its proxy agent?

I suppose I didn't really have a legalistically narrow question, just an interest in hearing a contemporary account of what experiences people here have had with Google Proxy, what they think about it, how they deal with it under what circumstances, and why.

If that's too broad, I apologize.

[aristotle]

Doesn't some of the google search traffic from mobile devices come through their proxies?

But I also seem to remember seeing some undesirable traffic coming through them.

Or maybe I"m mis-remembering all of this. Lucy could give us correct information.

[lucy24]

Lucy could give us correct information.

Heh. I'm more about User-Agents. Is this question about the various quasi-google IP ranges that a lot of Androids come through? Or is it about a yet-to-be-spelled-out User-Agent? The only one I can think of by that name is Google Image Proxy, which in my mind has a large question mark attached to it :(

[aristotle]

Google has hundreds, maybe even thousands, of proxy IPs. A lot of them have the form 64.233.172.x

Google uses them, members of the public sometimes use them, bots use them.

In my opinion you shouldn't ever try to block any of them even if you see mis-use or abuse, because you might also block something google is trying to do.

[JamesSC]

Thanks for everyone's responses.

No the user agent I'm talking about had this form

[webmasterworld.com...]

and was crawling from 66.249. but not from one of those 66.249's used by either the desktop crawler, nor the mobile one, nor the feed fetcher. Nor was it GoogleImageProxy. What immediately drew my attention was the set of files requested were those of an ordinary user, not of a typical Google spider, but they were coming from 66.249.

But given the interest shown so far, I'm concluding this isn't a problem for anyone here, so thanks again.

[lucy24]

Which 66.249? The .64-79 crawl range, or the .80-95 miscellaneous-Googloid-functions range?

In the linked post, everything useful was unfortunately edited out of the IP (“google-proxy-etcetera”).

[JamesSC]

Lucy, I'm sorry, and I'm frustrated because I can't find my log entries that originally prompted this - which now interests me more than google-proxy itself, because of course I'm not the only one with access to my logs, and I've been attacked before from more than one server belonging to my own host. My original post above got put in time out here for a day or so for some reason, but I've searched my logs both manually and cybernetically from 5/25/20 through 6/5/20, and, now, nothing. The entries just caught my attention because they pulled the half dozen or so files that always get pulled on a legitimate visitor hit rather than a spider, but they were from 66.249 and traced back to google.com, so I started googling "google-proxy" from the UA and ran across a number of inconclusive results, the main things being simply that a) Google provides the proxy function, for whatever reason(s) and b) as a proxy they're opaque.

It was just a weird little dozen or so entries of a sort I'd never seen before, so when I ran across IncrediBill's 2008 thread here about google proxy hijacking I thought it worth asking if there was anything more up to date and/or worth worrying about. Apparently not enough that what I inquired about even made sense to anyone reading my post.

If it happens again, I'll post the suitably redacted log entries here and maybe someone will be able to shed further light.

[not2easy]

My original post above got put in time out here for a day or so for some reason

That is because every post in the Google SEO News and Discussion forum goes automatically on hold. This is a Pre-Moderated forum where posts are not published until one of the volunteer mods has time to review it. In this case, it is not a topic normally discussed in the Google SEO News and Discussion forum and that might have delayed it longer than normal. The Charter tells us what to expect: [webmasterworld.com...]

I wouldn't want anyone to think it is personal. Sometimes Mods have scheduled other activities. Most discussions about IP ranges and suspect/bot visits are found in the Search Engine Spider and User Agent Identification forum. ;)

The Google Proxy ranges are something that only an examination can help folks decide whether they want to allow the activity or not. For many years they have been suspect and plenty of people block them but sooner or later some essential service from Google itself shows up and you need to poke a hole. Is it permanent? Not in my experience, if it was always unwanted traffic people here would be in agreement. It is a range that needs an extra level of monitoring because its users can be benign or evil.

[nettulf]

Google translate also uses Google Proxy.
If you enter the URL of your site there you will see.
Just tested with a site of mine and the log shows google-proxy-66-102-9-81.google.com

[JamesSC]

Google translate also uses Google Proxy.

Ha. That's very likely the most non-nefarious explanation. For some time now I've been promoting my site through networks that draw a number of other than English as their first language users. Until such time then as actual malice occurs, I'll just leave g-p alone.

Thanks again, all, for helping me get to the bottom of this curiosity.