---
title: "Applebot: user agent, token, block rate | Agent Ready Crawlers"
description: "Applebot from Apple: exact user-agent string, robots.txt token Applebot, search index purpose and how to verify it. 14.8% of top sites block it."
canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/applebot
site: "Agent Ready Crawlers"
last_updated: 2026-11-04
section: "Crawlers"
---

# Applebot: user agent, token, block rate | Agent Ready Crawlers

> Applebot from Apple: exact user-agent string, robots.txt token Applebot, search index purpose and how to verify it. 14.8% of top sites block it.

Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/applebot
Site: Agent Ready Crawlers
Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

Search index crawler from Apple

# Applebot

In short

Applebot is Apple's search index crawler. The token to write in robots.txt is Applebot. Verify it by reverse DNS, then a forward lookup. Mixed-use crawler; Cloudflare classes it Accountable (2026-09-15). Applebot: enabling Applebot in robots.txt allows content to appear in Apple search results; data may also train Apple foundation models unless Applebot-Extended is disallowed.

Operator

[Apple](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/operator/apple/) Vendor profile: [Apple](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/apple/)

Purpose

Search index [All search index rows](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/purpose/search-index/). Builds a search index that sends visitors back. Refusing it removes pages from that product.

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)`

robots.txt token

`Applebot` Matched case-insensitively (RFC 9309). The token and the user-agent string are different things.

Respects robots.txt

Yes, per operator

Apple: enabling Applebot in robots.txt allows content to appear in Apple search results; data may also train Apple foundation models unless Applebot-Extended is disallowed. [Source](https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829), read 2026-11-04.

Verification

Reverse DNS

Reverse-resolve the source address, then forward-resolve the name and require the same address. [Documentation](https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829), read 2026-11-04.

IP ranges

[search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json](https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json)

Rate behaviour

Not published.

Block rate

**14.8%** of 5,938 top-10,000 sites with a parsed robots.txt disallow `Applebot` at the root (877 sites). 11.6% name it; 3.1% refuse it only through a \* group. Rank 12 of 31 tokens measured.

Across all 8,624 parsed robots.txt files in the crawl: 11.1% (8.8% named). Crawl of 2026-11-04; [report](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/block-rates/).

Documentation

[support.apple.com](https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829), read 2026-11-04.

Note. Reverse DNS in \*.applebot.apple.com. Mixed-use crawler; Cloudflare classes it Accountable (2026-09-15). Apple says nosnippet opts content out of broad world knowledge answers.

## Allow and refuse lines

### To allow Applebot

User-agent: Applebot
Allow: /

### To refuse Applebot

User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /

Refusing or allowing in robots.txt states a preference. Enforcement of a refusal belongs in your WAF; see how to verify the identity above.

## Apple in the Verification Ledger

IP list and reverse DNS. [All operators](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/verification/).

IP lists

-   [search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json](https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json)

Reverse DNS

\*.applebot.apple.com

Key directory

publishes nothing

Cloudflare

not checked

Visa TAP registry

no public operator-level registration found (checked 2026-11-04)

Mastercard Agent Pay

no public operator-level registration found (checked 2026-11-04)

## In the news

-   2026-09-15[Cloudflare adds Disallow AI Training and the Accountable label](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/news/2026-09-15-cloudflare-adds-disallow-ai-training-and-the-accountable-lab/)

## Other Apple rows

-   [Applebot-Extended (control token)](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/applebot-extended/) Training token Applebot-Extended

## Sources

-   [About Applebot](https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829) read 2026-11-04
-   [search.developer.apple.com: applebot (JSON)](https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json) read 2026-11-04

Last reviewed 2026-11-04