# ClaudeBot vs Googlebot

ClaudeBot and Googlebot compared on 15 documented fields, from 22 claims, last verified 2026-09-15.

| Field | ClaudeBot | Googlebot | Comparison |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| anti_circumvention_stance | documented | not documented | different |
| cites_sources | not documented | yes | different |
| honours_crawl_delay | yes | no | different |
| observed_fetches_json | yes | not documented | different |
| observed_fetches_markdown | yes | not documented | different |
| observed_first_request_path | /sitemap.xml | not documented | different |
| observed_format_pass_order | html_json_md | not documented | different |
| observed_verified_request_ratio_census | not documented | 0.991 | different |
| publishes_ip_list | yes | yes | same |
| purpose_documented | training | search | different |
| reads_llms_txt | not documented | no | different |
| respects_robots_txt | yes | yes | same |
| separate_search_and_training_tokens | yes | yes | same |
| user_agent_string_full | not_documented | Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) | different |
| verifiable_by_rdns | not_documented | yes | different |

## Differences

| Field | ClaudeBot statement | Googlebot statement |
| --- | --- | --- |
| anti_circumvention_stance | ClaudeBot respects anti-circumvention technologies and does not bypass CAPTCHAs on crawled sites. | not documented |
| cites_sources | not documented | Google AI Overviews and AI Mode return AI generated responses with links to supporting websites. |
| honours_crawl_delay | Anthropic supports the non-standard robots.txt Crawl-delay extension for ClaudeBot. | Google does not support the robots.txt Crawl-delay directive for Googlebot. |
| observed_fetches_json | 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. | not documented |
| observed_fetches_markdown | 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. | not documented |
| observed_first_request_path | 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. | not documented |
| observed_format_pass_order | 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. | not documented |
| observed_verified_request_ratio_census | not documented | Googlebot requests to Rattlesnakes By Mail matched Google's published IP ranges on 108 of 109 requests between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z. Googlebot's first request to Rattlesnakes By Mail in that window was /robots.txt at 2026-09-14T11:53:00Z. |
| purpose_documented | ClaudeBot collects web content for training Anthropic generative AI models. | Googlebot crawls pages for Google Search, Google Images, Google Video, Google News, and Discover. |
| reads_llms_txt | not documented | Google Search does not use llms.txt files. |
| user_agent_string_full | Anthropic does not publish a full user agent string for ClaudeBot. | Googlebot sends the user agent string Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html). |
| verifiable_by_rdns | Anthropic does not publish a reverse-DNS verification method for ClaudeBot. | Googlebot requests are verifiable by reverse DNS lookup resolving to googlebot.com, google.com, or googleusercontent.com. |

## Sources

- https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json
- https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/verifying-googlebot
- https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/07/a-note-on-unsupported-rules-in-robotstxt
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
- https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/common-crawlers.json
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/claudebot
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/googlebot
- https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8896518-does-anthropic-crawl-content-from-the-web-and-how-can-site-owners-block-the-crawler