{ "entity_a": { "slug": "applebot", "name": "Applebot" }, "entity_b": { "slug": "applebot-extended", "name": "Applebot-Extended" }, "fields_documented": 13, "claims": 19, "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "fields": [ { "field": "cites_sources", "value_a": "yes", "value_b": null, "claim_id_a": 15, "claim_id_b": null, "same": false }, { "field": "fallback_to_googlebot_rules", "value_a": "yes", "value_b": null, "claim_id_a": 18, "claim_id_b": null, "same": false }, { "field": "honours_crawl_delay", "value_a": "no", "value_b": "n/a", "claim_id_a": 10, "claim_id_b": 2, "same": false }, { "field": "observed_paths_fetched", "value_a": "robots_txt_and_home_only", "value_b": null, "claim_id_a": 150, "claim_id_b": null, "same": false }, { "field": "publishes_ip_list", "value_a": "yes", "value_b": "no", "claim_id_a": 11, "claim_id_b": 3, "same": false }, { "field": "purpose_documented", "value_a": "mixed", "value_b": "policy_only", "claim_id_a": 13, "claim_id_b": 5, "same": false }, { "field": "reads_llms_txt", "value_a": "not_documented", "value_b": null, "claim_id_a": 16, "claim_id_b": null, "same": false }, { "field": "respects_robots_txt", "value_a": "yes", "value_b": "n/a", "claim_id_a": 9, "claim_id_b": 1, "same": false }, { "field": "robots_token_differs_from_ua", "value_a": null, "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 8, "same": false }, { "field": "separate_search_and_training_tokens", "value_a": "partial", "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": 14, "claim_id_b": 6, "same": false }, { "field": "user_agent_string_full", "value_a": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4 Safari/605.1.15 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)", "value_b": null, "claim_id_a": 17, "claim_id_b": null, "same": false }, { "field": "verifiable_by_rdns", "value_a": "yes", "value_b": "n/a", "claim_id_a": 12, "claim_id_b": 4, "same": false }, { "field": "what_it_controls", "value_a": null, "value_b": "AI training use of content, not search indexing", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 7, "same": false } ], "differences": [ { "field": "cites_sources", "statement_a": "Apple includes links to source websites in Siri and Search answers to broad world knowledge questions.", "statement_b": null, "claim_id_a": 15, "claim_id_b": null }, { "field": "fallback_to_googlebot_rules", "statement_a": "Applebot follows Googlebot robots.txt instructions when a robots.txt file mentions Googlebot but not Applebot.", "statement_b": null, "claim_id_a": 18, "claim_id_b": null }, { "field": "honours_crawl_delay", "statement_a": "Applebot does not follow the robots.txt Crawl-delay directive.", "statement_b": "Apple does not publish a Crawl-delay behaviour for Applebot-Extended.", "claim_id_a": 10, "claim_id_b": 2 }, { "field": "observed_paths_fetched", "statement_a": "Applebot made 6 requests to Rattlesnakes By Mail between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z, to 2 distinct paths, /robots.txt and the home page. Applebot's 6 requests to Rattlesnakes By Mail run from 2026-09-14T12:22:23Z to 2026-09-14T12:59:26Z and alternate the two paths three times.", "statement_b": null, "claim_id_a": 150, "claim_id_b": null }, { "field": "publishes_ip_list", "statement_a": "Apple publishes the IP address CIDR ranges used by Applebot as a JSON file at https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json.", "statement_b": "Apple publishes no IP list specific to Applebot-Extended and documents one shared crawl identity for Applebot.", "claim_id_a": 11, "claim_id_b": 3 }, { "field": "purpose_documented", "statement_a": "Applebot crawls content for Apple search results and for training Apple foundation models.", "statement_b": "Applebot-Extended controls whether website content is used to train Apple general purpose foundation models.", "claim_id_a": 13, "claim_id_b": 5 }, { "field": "reads_llms_txt", "statement_a": "Apple does not publish whether Applebot reads llms.txt files.", "statement_b": null, "claim_id_a": 16, "claim_id_b": null }, { "field": "respects_robots_txt", "statement_a": "Applebot respects standard robots.txt directives targeted at Applebot in general search crawls.", "statement_b": "Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt token that publishers disallow to opt out of generative model training.", "claim_id_a": 9, "claim_id_b": 1 }, { "field": "robots_token_differs_from_ua", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt control token and does not correspond to a separate crawler user agent string.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 8 }, { "field": "separate_search_and_training_tokens", "statement_a": "Apple uses one crawler token, Applebot, for search crawling and for training crawling, and a second robots.txt token, Applebot-Extended, that opts content out of training use.", "statement_b": "Webpages that disallow Applebot-Extended remain eligible for inclusion in Apple search results.", "claim_id_a": 14, "claim_id_b": 6 }, { "field": "user_agent_string_full", "statement_a": "Applebot sends the desktop user agent string Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4 Safari/605.1.15 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot).", "statement_b": null, "claim_id_a": 17, "claim_id_b": null }, { "field": "verifiable_by_rdns", "statement_a": "Applebot traffic is verifiable by reverse DNS lookup in the applebot.apple.com domain.", "statement_b": "Apple does not publish a reverse-DNS verification method specific to Applebot-Extended.", "claim_id_a": 12, "claim_id_b": 4 }, { "field": "what_it_controls", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "Applebot-Extended controls the AI training use of crawled content and does not control search indexing.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 7 } ], "sources": [ "https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/applebot", "https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json", "https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829" ] }