Apple · Training crawlers
Applebot
Apple’s crawler for search and, depending on Applebot-Extended, AI training. Cloudflare classifies it across search and training use cases.
- Operator
- Apple
- Traffic type
- Training crawlers
- Verification
- User-agent + IP range
- robots.txt
- Honors robots.txt
Usually means: Bots that collect public pages for future models. Blocking them opts you out of training. It does not, by itself, remove you from live AI search citations.
User-agent
robots.txt and most WAF rules match the token, not the full Mozilla string. Operators often wrap Applebot in extra product or version text.
Applebot
What Applebot does
Applebot crawls for Apple search experiences (Spotlight, Siri, Safari suggestions). Applebot-Extended then decides training use of that crawl.
How to get discovered
Allow Applebot if you want Apple search surfaces to know the page. Use Applebot-Extended to opt out of training without dropping search.
Why Applebot might skip you
robots Disallow on Applebot, or WAF rules that treat Applebot as an unidentified bot.
robots.txt rule
This snippet opts out of training-style collection. Keep the search and user-fetch tokens from the same operator allowed if you still want citations.
# Optional training opt-out — does not remove you from AI search by itself
User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /Allowlist so Applebot can reach you
A user-agent is spoofable. Apple publishes current CIDR ranges as JSON — fetch that file for WAF/CDN allowlists instead of copying ranges from a blog. Ranges rotate; a screenshot of ten prefixes will go stale. If Cloudflare “Block AI bots” is on, this is the list that gets the real crawler through.
https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json ↗
Sources
JavaScript: can render JS (often a second pass).
Other Apple bots
Training, search, and user-fetch tokens from the same operator are not interchangeable. Allow the discovery path even when you opt out of training.
Applebot FAQ
What is Applebot?
Applebot crawls for Apple search experiences (Spotlight, Siri, Safari suggestions). Applebot-Extended then decides training use of that crawl.
Should I allow Applebot in robots.txt?
Only if you want to opt out of training-style collection. Blocking Applebot does not, by itself, remove you from live AI search citations — those use the search and user-fetch tokens from Apple.
How do I know a request is really Applebot?
A user-agent is a claim anyone can send. Match the Applebot token, then check the source IP against Apple’s published ranges. Use those ranges as a WAF allowlist so a “Block AI bots” rule does not 403 the real crawler.
Letting Applebot in is the start. Getting cited is the job.
Rankealo checks whether AI crawlers can reach you, then publishes pages built to be retrieved and quoted in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
