{ "entity_a": { "slug": "applebot", "name": "Applebot" }, "entity_b": { "slug": "claudebot", "name": "ClaudeBot" }, "fields_documented": 16, "claims": 23, "last_verified": "2026-09-15", "fields": [ { "field": "anti_circumvention_stance", "value_a": null, "value_b": "documented", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 53, "same": false }, { "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": "yes", "claim_id_a": 10, "claim_id_b": 48, "same": false }, { "field": "observed_fetches_json", "value_a": null, "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 143, "same": false }, { "field": "observed_fetches_markdown", "value_a": null, "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 142, "same": false }, { "field": "observed_first_request_path", "value_a": null, "value_b": "/sitemap.xml", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 144, "same": false }, { "field": "observed_format_pass_order", "value_a": null, "value_b": "html_json_md", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 145, "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": "yes", "claim_id_a": 11, "claim_id_b": 49, "same": true }, { "field": "purpose_documented", "value_a": "mixed", "value_b": "training", "claim_id_a": 13, "claim_id_b": 51, "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": "yes", "claim_id_a": 9, "claim_id_b": 47, "same": true }, { "field": "separate_search_and_training_tokens", "value_a": "partial", "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": 14, "claim_id_b": 52, "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": "not_documented", "claim_id_a": 17, "claim_id_b": 54, "same": false }, { "field": "verifiable_by_rdns", "value_a": "yes", "value_b": "not_documented", "claim_id_a": 12, "claim_id_b": 50, "same": false } ], "differences": [ { "field": "anti_circumvention_stance", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "ClaudeBot respects anti-circumvention technologies and does not bypass CAPTCHAs on crawled sites.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 53 }, { "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": "Anthropic supports the non-standard robots.txt Crawl-delay extension for ClaudeBot.", "claim_id_a": 10, "claim_id_b": 48 }, { "field": "observed_fetches_json", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "ClaudeBot made 177 JSON requests to Rattlesnakes By Mail between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z, covering the .json twin of 170 base paths. The .json URLs of Rattlesnakes By Mail appear in no entry of the 171 URL sitemap.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 143 }, { "field": "observed_fetches_markdown", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "ClaudeBot fetched the .md twin of 170 base paths on Rattlesnakes By Mail between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z, 170 Markdown requests of 542 ClaudeBot requests in that window. The .md URLs of Rattlesnakes By Mail appear in no entry of the 171 URL sitemap.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 142 }, { "field": "observed_first_request_path", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "ClaudeBot's first request to Rattlesnakes By Mail between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z was /sitemap.xml at 2026-09-14T19:53:45Z. ClaudeBot fetched /robots.txt on the second request to Rattlesnakes By Mail.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 144 }, { "field": "observed_format_pass_order", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "ClaudeBot fetched Rattlesnakes By Mail in three format passes between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z, HTML from 2026-09-14T20:52Z to 2026-09-14T20:57Z, then JSON from 2026-09-14T21:37Z to 2026-09-14T21:56Z, then Markdown from 2026-09-14T21:37Z to 2026-09-14T21:57Z. The same order holds on 170 of 170 base paths that ClaudeBot fetched in all three formats on Rattlesnakes By Mail.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 145 }, { "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": "purpose_documented", "statement_a": "Applebot crawls content for Apple search results and for training Apple foundation models.", "statement_b": "ClaudeBot collects web content for training Anthropic generative AI models.", "claim_id_a": 13, "claim_id_b": 51 }, { "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": "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": "Anthropic separates training and search controls into two robots.txt tokens: ClaudeBot for training and Claude-SearchBot for search.", "claim_id_a": 14, "claim_id_b": 52 }, { "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": "Anthropic does not publish a full user agent string for ClaudeBot.", "claim_id_a": 17, "claim_id_b": 54 }, { "field": "verifiable_by_rdns", "statement_a": "Applebot traffic is verifiable by reverse DNS lookup in the applebot.apple.com domain.", "statement_b": "Anthropic does not publish a reverse-DNS verification method for ClaudeBot.", "claim_id_a": 12, "claim_id_b": 50 } ], "sources": [ "https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json", "https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/applebot", "https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/claudebot", "https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json", "https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829", "https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-content-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler" ] }