AI crawler index

What is Claude-SearchBot?

Claude-SearchBot is Anthropic's crawler for AI search. Navigates the web to improve the quality of the search results Claude gives its users.

At a glance

Operator	Anthropic
Purpose	AI search
User agent	Not documented by the operator
Obeys robots.txt	Yes, according to the operator
Published IP ranges	https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json
How to verify it	Anthropic says a source IP on its published list indicates the crawler is from Anthropic.
Official documentation	https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-data-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler

Should you block Claude-SearchBot?

It builds the index an AI search engine cites from. Blocking it can remove your pages from that engine's answers and links, so if you want to be cited there, allow it.

Anthropic says blocking it may reduce your visibility and accuracy in Claude's search results. It is separate from ClaudeBot, the training crawler.

How to block or allow Claude-SearchBot in robots.txt

Block it everywhere:

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Disallow: /

Allow it everywhere:

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /

Rules are matched by the token on the User-agent line. Test the result with the robots.txt tester before you publish it.

How to verify that a visit is really Claude-SearchBot

Anyone can write Claude-SearchBot in a user agent, so the user agent alone proves nothing. Take the IP address of the request from your server logs and check it.

Anthropic publishes its IP ranges as JSON. This command downloads the list and prints True if the IP is in it. Replace 203.0.113.7 with the IP from your logs; Python 3 comes with macOS and most Linux systems.

curl -s https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json \
  | python3 -c 'import sys, json, ipaddress as ip
a = ip.ip_address(sys.argv[1])
ranges = json.load(sys.stdin)["prefixes"]
print(any(a in ip.ip_network(r.get("ipv4Prefix") or r.get("ipv6Prefix")) for r in ranges))' 203.0.113.7

Other Anthropic crawlers

ClaudeBot: AI training
Claude-User: User-triggered fetch

Check your own site

The AI crawler checker tells you which AI crawlers your robots.txt lets in, and the log file analyzer shows how often each one actually visits. For the bigger picture, see what AI crawlers are and the full AI crawler index.

What our data says about Claude-SearchBot

Figures we measured on real AI answers and websites. Each one links to its study, with the method, the sample and the date.

7.1%

7.1% of the websites AI cites most in Spain block Claude-SearchBot from crawling their site, and 8.6% name it in a robots.txt group of its own.

Sample: 382 websites AI cites for three or more of 43 brands in Spain. Source: Mencoro (October 2026), in Which AI crawlers do the websites AI cites let in?