Rattlesnakes By Mail

Claude-SearchBot vs Claude-User

Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User compared on 10 documented fields, from 19 claims, last verified 2026-09-13.

FieldClaude-SearchBotClaude-UserComparison
cites_sourcesnot_documentednot_documentedsame
honours_crawl_delayyesyessame
publishes_ip_listyesyessame
purpose_documentedsearchuser_fetchdifferent
reads_llms_txtnot_documentednot_documentedsame
respects_robots_txtyesyessame
separate_search_and_training_tokensyesnot_documenteddifferent
user_agent_string_fullnot_documentednot_documentedsame
user_fetch_exception_documentednot documentednodifferent
verifiable_by_rdnsnot_documentednot_documentedsame

Differences

FieldClaude-SearchBot statementClaude-User statement
purpose_documentedClaude-SearchBot analyses online content to improve the relevance and accuracy of Claude search responses.Claude-User accesses websites in response to questions that individual users ask Claude.
separate_search_and_training_tokensAnthropic separates search and training controls into two robots.txt tokens: Claude-SearchBot for search and ClaudeBot for training.Anthropic does not document Claude-User as a search or training opt-out token.
user_fetch_exception_documentednot documentedAnthropic applies the same robots.txt statement to Claude-User as to ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot and documents no exception for user-initiated fetches.

Sources