Claude-SearchBot
Anthropic · Search index crawler
What it does
Claude-SearchBot builds the index that answers are retrieved from. Indexes pages to support Claude search results.
It does not execute JavaScript. Whatever your server returns in the initial HTML response is the entire page as far as Claude-SearchBot is concerned — if your content is rendered client-side, this crawler reads an empty container.
Should you block Claude-SearchBot?
Blocking it removes you from the index that answers are drawn from. Your pages stop being available as a source, and you will simply not be cited.
Your pages stop being indexed as sources Claude can cite. The effect is the same shape as blocking any search index crawler: you are not down-ranked, you are simply not in the candidate set.
To allow it
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /To block it
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Disallow: /Put the rule in your robots.txt at the site root. A group that names Claude-SearchBot explicitly takes precedence over your User-agent: * group, so naming it is how you make your intent survive later edits to the wildcard rules.
Verifying a real Claude-SearchBot request
Check the source IP against Anthropic's published ranges. The search crawler is distinct from ClaudeBot and should be evaluated on its own, not by assuming one Anthropic range covers all of them.
The mistake people make
Assuming a wildcard Allow covers it. It does, until someone adds a blanket Disallow for an unrelated reason — a staging leak, a scraper problem — and the search crawler goes down with everything else because it was never named.
Anthropic's other crawlers
- ClaudeBotCollects content for Anthropic model training.
- Claude-UserFetches a page on behalf of a Claude user following a link.
Can Claude-SearchBot reach your site?
The free scan parses your robots.txt, evaluates every AI crawler against it, and tells you how much of a page Claude-SearchBot would actually come away with.
Run the free scan