{ "entity_a": { "slug": "applebot", "name": "Applebot" }, "entity_b": { "slug": "google-extended", "name": "Google-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": 56, "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": 57, "same": false }, { "field": "purpose_documented", "value_a": "mixed", "value_b": "policy_only", "claim_id_a": 13, "claim_id_b": 59, "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": 55, "same": false }, { "field": "robots_token_differs_from_ua", "value_a": null, "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 62, "same": false }, { "field": "separate_search_and_training_tokens", "value_a": "partial", "value_b": "yes", "claim_id_a": 14, "claim_id_b": 60, "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": 58, "same": false }, { "field": "what_it_controls", "value_a": null, "value_b": "Gemini model training and grounding, not Search inclusion", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 61, "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": "Google does not publish any Crawl-delay behaviour for the Google-Extended token.", "claim_id_a": 10, "claim_id_b": 56 }, { "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": "Google publishes no IP list for Google-Extended because Google-Extended has no separate HTTP request user agent string.", "claim_id_a": 11, "claim_id_b": 57 }, { "field": "purpose_documented", "statement_a": "Applebot crawls content for Apple search results and for training Apple foundation models.", "statement_b": "Google-Extended is a standalone product token that controls whether Google uses crawled content to train Gemini models.", "claim_id_a": 13, "claim_id_b": 59 }, { "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": "Google-Extended is a robots.txt token that publishers set to control use of crawled content for Gemini training.", "claim_id_a": 9, "claim_id_b": 55 }, { "field": "robots_token_differs_from_ua", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "Google-Extended is a robots.txt control token and does not correspond to a crawler user agent string.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 62 }, { "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": "Google-Extended controls Gemini training use only and does not affect inclusion in Google Search.", "claim_id_a": 14, "claim_id_b": 60 }, { "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": "Google does not publish a reverse-DNS verification method for Google-Extended.", "claim_id_a": 12, "claim_id_b": 58 }, { "field": "what_it_controls", "statement_a": null, "statement_b": "Google-Extended controls AI training and grounding in Google systems and does not control Google Search inclusion.", "claim_id_a": null, "claim_id_b": 61 } ], "sources": [ "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features", "https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers", "https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/applebot", "https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json", "https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829" ] }