Detect Bots in Google Sheets & Excel

What this pulls

Flag bot and crawler user agents by the row. Returns bot name, category and reputation — Sheets or Excel.

It's one of 250+ live sources you reach with a single =VERVE() function — served from APIVerve's production data engine, billed at 10 credits per resolved cell, and refreshed on whatever cadence you set. No API keys to wrangle, no scripts, no exports.

See it in a cell

A real example — the input you type, and the values you can pull from it. Click any cell to see the formula behind it.

botdetector.xlsxsample data

B2fx=VERVE("botdetector", A2, "field", "userAgent")

User Agent

Is Bot

Bot › Name

Bot › Category

Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.…

TRUE

Googlebot

search_engine

click any cell to see its formula10 credits / cell

Ways to use it

Resolve a column of hosts

Fill =VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "userAgent") down your list of hosts or IPs and land the answer for each in its own row — no terminal, no scripts.

Enrich logs or inventories

Add Detect Bots's lookup beside an existing table to turn bare identifiers into readable, structured detail.

Compose checks

Combine the result with IF and conditional formatting to surface the rows that need attention.

Use it in your sheet

The same function works in both apps — install once, sign in with your key, and type it into any cell.

Google SheetsAdd-on

Install from the Workspace Marketplace, then drop the formula into a cell. Autocomplete suggests the source and its fields.

=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "userAgent")

Microsoft ExcelAdd-in

Same source, same arguments, same key — in Excel on desktop, the web, or mobile. Excel namespaces it as VERVE.CALL. Drag to fill a whole column.

=VERVE.CALL("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "userAgent")

Optional inputs

Tune the result by adding name=value before the field argument — in any order. Leave one out and its default applies.

ip
Optional IP the request came from. When the user agent claims to be a Google, Bing, OpenAI or Apple crawler, it is checked against that operator's published IP ranges
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "ip", "66.249.66.1")

Fields you can pull

Add a field name as the last argument to land just that value in the cell.

User Agent
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "userAgent")
Is Bot
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "isBot")
BotPremium
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "bot")
Bot › Name
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "bot.name")
Bot › Category
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "bot.category")
Bot › Url
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "bot.url")
Bot › Reputation
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "bot.reputation")
Bot › Should Block
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "bot.shouldBlock")
Is AutomatedPremium
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "isAutomated")
Risk ScorePremium
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "riskScore")
Risk LevelPremium
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "riskLevel")
VerifiedPremium
=VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "verified")

Premium marks data included on paid plans. On the Free plan a marked field is withheld and a marked input is ignored — either way the cell reads #PREMIUM(name) instead of a value, so a gated answer can never be mistaken for a real one. Everything unmarked works on every plan. Compare plans

Detect Bots, answered

Everything you need to wire it into a sheet.

How do I pull Detect Bots into Google Sheets?

Install the VerveSheets add-on, sign in once with your key, and type =VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "field", "userAgent") into any cell. The "field" argument names the value you want back, so the cell resolves to a single number or string you can chart, sort, or feed into another formula.

What data can I pull from Detect Bots?

Detect Bots returns userAgent, isBot, bot.name, bot.category and bot.url, plus 2 more — name any one of them as the "field" argument and that value lands in the cell. Leave the field out and the whole record spills into a two-column table instead.

Can I narrow what Detect Bots returns?

Yes — Detect Bots takes "ip" as optional inputs. They go in as "name", value pairs after the required ones, in any order, so =VERVE("botdetector", "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)", "ip", "66.249.66.1") shapes the result without changing anything else.

Which Detect Bots fields need a paid plan?

bot, isAutomated, riskScore and riskLevel, plus 1 more are included from the Starter plan up. On the Free plan the cell returns #PREMIUM(field) rather than a wrong or empty value, so it's always obvious which one to upgrade for. Every other field works on Free.

Can I fill a whole column of Detect Bots at once?

Yes. Put your ua values down a column and point the formula at the range — A2:A50 instead of A2 — and one call returns a value for every row. Dragging the formula down works too, but the range form is a single billed call per column rather than one per cell.

How many credits does each Detect Bots cell cost?

Each resolved cell costs 10 credits. A cell only re-bills when it actually refreshes, so a sheet you aren't touching doesn't keep charging.

Does Detect Bots work in Excel as well as Google Sheets?

Yes — same arguments, same key, same fields. Excel namespaces custom functions, so the call is =VERVE.CALL() there and =VERVE() in Google Sheets; nothing else about it changes.

Detect Bots

Resolve a column of hosts

Enrich logs or inventories

Compose checks

Detect Bots, answered

Put Detect Bots in your next spreadsheet. Add the extension, paste the formula, and the cell keeps itself current.

Scaling up?