What is Claude-SearchBot? Anthropic's AI crawler
Claude-SearchBot is the crawler Anthropic says navigates the web to improve search result quality for Claude's users.
42 of the 389 major websites we measure block Claude-SearchBot in robots.txt (11%), making it number 19 of the 30 AI crawlers we track for how often it is blocked. 57 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.
Key facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Operator | Anthropic |
| Used for | Claude's search |
| Type | Search index. Decides whether a site can appear in that product's AI search answers. |
| robots.txt token | Claude-SearchBot |
| Operator's documentation | Read it here |
What blocking Claude-SearchBot does
Anthropic says disabling it prevents your content being indexed for search optimization, which may reduce your visibility and accuracy in user search results.
How to allow or block Claude-SearchBot
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. It is a stated preference that well-behaved crawlers read, not an enforcement mechanism.
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Disallow: /
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot Allow: /
Claude-SearchBot user agent string
Anthropic's page doesn't list a full string, so look for Claude-SearchBot in the user agent field of your logs.
How to verify a request is really Claude-SearchBot
Anyone can put a crawler's name in a user agent string, so the name alone proves nothing. Anthropic says blocking its IP addresses may not work correctly or persistently guarantee an opt-out, because that stops it reading your robots.txt. It says to use robots.txt instead.
How to whitelist Claude-SearchBot in a firewall or CDN
robots.txt only states a preference. A firewall, CDN or bot protection service can still refuse the request, and the crawler then gets an error even though robots.txt allows it.
- Check that no group in your robots.txt blocks it, using the rule above.
- Add an allow rule in your firewall or CDN that matches the name in the user agent. Keep the rule narrow, because anyone can copy a name.
- Check your server logs for a 200 response from Claude-SearchBot afterwards.
On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.
Why Claude-SearchBot gets a 403 or 405 error
A 403 means the server refused the request, which usually points to a firewall or bot rule. A 405 means the server refused the request's method, so check any rule that only permits certain methods. A crawler that obeys robots.txt won't request a page it is told to avoid, so an error in your logs points to your server's configuration. To stop it deliberately at the server, this nginx rule returns a 403:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Claude-SearchBot") {
return 403;
}Which sites recently changed their rules for Claude-SearchBot?
| Date first seen | Site | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 3 November 2026 | bbc.co.uk | Started blocking |
| 2 November 2026 | cnbc.com | Started blocking |
See the full change log.
Who blocks Claude-SearchBot, by sector
| Sector | Sites measured | Blocking | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| News publishers | 44 | 23 | 52% |
| Technology media | 25 | 6 | 24% |
| Finance and business media | 29 | 4 | 14% |
| Social and media platforms | 28 | 4 | 14% |
| E-commerce and retail | 19 | 2 | 11% |
| Travel | 19 | 2 | 11% |
| Health publishers | 16 | 1 | 6% |
| AI companies | 28 | 0 | 0% |
| Developer references | 34 | 0 | 0% |
| Government and institutions | 19 | 0 | 0% |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 23 | 0 | 0% |
| Reference and research | 25 | 0 | 0% |
| SaaS platforms | 54 | 0 | 0% |
| SEO and marketing tools | 26 | 0 | 0% |
Sites blocking Claude-SearchBot
amazon.com, apnews.com, arstechnica.com, asahi.com, barrons.com, bbc.co.uk, buzzfeednews.com, cnbc.com, cnn.com, cntraveler.com, economist.com, elpais.com, france24.com, globeandmail.com, huffpost.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, investopedia.com, lemonde.fr, lifehacker.com, marketwatch.com, mashable.com, nbcnews.com, newyorker.com, nytimes.com, pinterest.com, quora.com, reddit.com, reuters.com, spiegel.de, telegraph.co.uk, theatlantic.com, theguardian.com, thetimes.co.uk, theverge.com, travelandleisure.com, usatoday.com, verywellhealth.com, vox.com, wired.com, wsj.com, zdnet.com.
Sites that allow Claude-SearchBot by name
academia.edu, bloomberg.com, disneyplus.com, ebay.com, expedia.com, fastcompany.com, figma.com, flickr.com, forbes.com, hackernoon.com, hulu.com, inc.com, klaviyo.com, netflix.com, omio.com, pcmag.com, render.com, sciencedirect.com, seranking.com, soundcloud.com, theregister.com, ulta.com, unsplash.com, vrbo.com.
Other Anthropic crawlers
ClaudeBot (model training), Claude-User (on-demand fetch).
See all 30 AI crawlers, the rule change log or the full study. Being reachable is only the first step: how AI search engines choose what to cite covers the rest.
Cite this data
You are welcome to quote or republish these figures. Please credit IndexHalo with a link to this page (CC BY 4.0). All our datasets are on the data page.
IndexHalo. "Claude-SearchBot block rate across major websites." Measured 3 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/claude-searchbot/
<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/claude-searchbot/">Claude-SearchBot block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>