AI assistant · Google

Gemini

Grounding with Google Search.

Compiled by Kuldeep Paul · Updated Oct 29, 2026

Operator: Google
Launched: Feb 8, 2024
Search index: Grounding with Google Search.Sources: ai.google.dev, answerline.dev
Crawlers: Googlebot — blocked by 2.4% of top sitesGoogle-Extended — blocked by 15.5% of top sitesGoogle-Agent — blocked by 4.7% of top sites
Referrer in analytics: gemini.google.combard.google.com
UTM tagging: None added
Ads: No ads in the Gemini app as of October 2026.
Citations: Source chips under the answer; a double-check button re-verifies with Search.
Official docs: developers.google.com

What this means for visibility

Google-Extended is a robots.txt token, not a crawler. Disallowing it stops use of content for Gemini training and grounding but does not affect Google Search.

Usage, as stated

As of	Metric	Value	Stated by	Source
Jul 2025	Monthly active users	450 million	Sundar Pichai, Q2 2025 earnings	techcrunch.com
Feb 2026	Monthly active users	750 million+	Google, Q4 2025 earnings	businessinsider.com
Jul 2026	Monthly active users	950 million	Google, Q2 2026 earnings	businessinsider.com

Gemini users over time (millions)

Monthly active users Source: Google, as stated

Questions

What search engine does Gemini use?

Grounding with Google Search.

Which crawlers does Gemini use?

Gemini relies on Googlebot, Google-Extended, Google-Agent. Google-Extended is a robots.txt token, not a crawler. Disallowing it stops use of content for Gemini training and grounding but does not affect Google Search.

How do I track Gemini traffic in analytics?

Clicks from Gemini arrive with the referrer gemini.google.com or bard.google.com. Add it to an AI channel in GA4 using a source regex.

Does Gemini show ads?

No ads in the Gemini app as of October 2026.

Analysis using this data

The opt-out asymmetry: you can block the small AI engines, not the big oneThe AI surfaces with the most users are the ones publishers can't refuse and can't measure.

Other AI engines

ChatGPT · ChatGPT Atlas · Google AI Overviews · Google AI Mode · Perplexity · Comet · Claude · Microsoft Copilot · Meta AI · Grok · DeepSeek · Le Chat · You.com · Brave Search (Ask Brave) · Kagi Assistant · DuckDuckGo (Duck.ai & Search Assist) · Amazon Rufus (retired)

How to cite this data

This dataset is free to use, including commercially, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. The one rule is attribution:

Credit the source as “Kuldeep Paul, kuldeep.cc” wherever you use a figure, chart or table from it.
Link to this page (https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/gemini), not to the download file, so readers can check the source of every number.
Include the date. These figures change; say “as of Oct 29, 2026” or link to the version you used.
Mark changes. If you filter, recalculate or chart the data yourself, say so (“analysis based on data from…”).
Cite the original source for single figures when you quote one reported number; it is linked in every row.

In running text: according to Kuldeep Paul's Gemini — AI search engine reference (kuldeep.cc). More in the methodology.

APA

Paul, K. (2026). Gemini — AI search engine reference [Data set]. kuldeep.cc. https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/gemini

MLA

Paul, Kuldeep. "Gemini — AI search engine reference." kuldeep.cc, 29 October 2026, https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/gemini.

Chicago

Paul, Kuldeep. 2026. "Gemini — AI search engine reference." Dataset. kuldeep.cc. Updated Oct 29, 2026. https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/gemini.

BibTeX

@misc{paul2026gemini, author = {Paul, Kuldeep}, title = {Gemini — AI search engine reference}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {\url{https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/gemini}}, note = {Dataset, CC BY 4.0, updated 2026-10-29} }

HTML link

<a href="https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/gemini">Gemini — AI search engine reference</a> (data: Kuldeep Paul, kuldeep.cc)