Applebot is Apple's crawler. It indexes web content to power Apple's search experiences across Siri, Spotlight and Safari Suggestions. It is a search crawler, feeding the results Apple surfaces to users on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Blocking Applebot means your pages can't appear in those Apple-driven suggestions and results, cutting a visibility channel across Apple's large device ecosystem.
How to check and control it
To check, look in your robots.txt for a rule targeting this user-agent. To allow or block it:
User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: / # blocks it — remove or set "Allow: /" to permitFor an instant check across your whole site, use SEO AEO Specialist's free AI crawler checker, and see the llms.txt & AI crawler guide.
FAQ
What does blocking Applebot affect?
It removes you from Apple's search features — Siri answers, Spotlight results and Safari Suggestions — since these draw on Applebot's index. If you want visibility across Apple devices, keep Applebot allowed in your robots.txt.
Is Applebot used for AI training?
Applebot primarily powers Apple's search features like Siri, Spotlight and Safari Suggestions. Apple has used a separate control (Applebot-Extended) for generative AI use, so the standard Applebot rule mainly governs search visibility. SEO AEO Specialist audits which Apple agents you allow and helps you fix each rule.
See where you stand
SEO AEO Specialist runs a free AI-visibility audit and hands you the exact fixes. One-off report €9, unlimited €19/mo.
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