Checks / AI crawler access
robots.txt keeps Claude-SearchBot out of your home page and most of the site
Claude-SearchBot may read only the paths robots.txt allows for it. Your home page and the rest of the site stay closed to it, so it cannot cite them.
robots_partial_claude_searchbot · AI crawler access · Error
What triggers it
robots.txt does not let Claude-SearchBot fetch your home page, but leaves some other paths open for it; the finding names the first three.
What to change
Remove the Disallow: / rule for Claude-SearchBot in robots.txt, or add Allow rules for the other paths you want read.
Example
Lines that allow Claude-SearchBot in robots.txt:
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /How to confirm the fix
- Open https://example.com/robots.txt: the group that names Claude-SearchBot (or the * group, if none does) leaves most of the site open, the home page included
- Run a new crawl: the AI crawler table no longer reports Claude-SearchBot as mostly blocked
About Claude-SearchBot
Claude-SearchBot is the Anthropic robot that navigates the web to improve search result quality. Anthropic says disabling it prevents indexing of your content for search optimization, which may reduce your visibility and accuracy in user search results. Its robots.txt token is Claude-SearchBot.
ClaudeBot is Anthropic's training crawler: Anthropic says a Disallow for it means future materials should be excluded from its AI model training datasets. Claude-SearchBot has its own token.
The help article is dated 7 April 2026. It lists no user-agent string, so a log line that names Claude-SearchBot is a claim you cannot confirm from the article alone. Anthropic says traffic from an address on its linked list is Anthropic's, and it asks site owners who think a robot is misbehaving to write from an email on the domain concerned.
Job: Search. Follows robots.txt: Yes, Anthropic says its robots respect robots.txt.
Claude-SearchBot: operator, user-agent string and address list
How common it is
We have not measured how common this is on a sample of sites. Counts appear here when a study covers it.
About this check
| Check ID | robots_partial_claude_searchbot |
|---|---|
| Report section | AI crawler access |
| Severity | Error |
| How it is decided | Measured: read directly from the page or the server's response. |
| Added | Before 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet |
| Status | Measured in every report |
| Report gives the code | Yes, one block for the site |
Settings by platform
For robots.txt, where the setting lives differs by platform. Our guides cover 13 of them: AI crawler settings by platform.
Related checks
- robots.txt blocks OAI-SearchBot
- robots.txt keeps ChatGPT-User out of your home page and most of the site
- robots.txt keeps Claude-User out of your home page and most of the site
- robots.txt keeps OAI-SearchBot out of your home page and most of the site
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