Websites blocking Applebot
Apple's web crawler behind Siri and Spotlight suggestions. Content it crawls can also feed Apple Intelligence features unless a site opts out via Applebot-Extended.
Operated by Apple · Search and AI assistant · operator documentation
3.62%
block Applebot
902K of 24.91 million domains with a known robots.txt policy
0.19%
block it by name
47,846 domains, the rest inherit a blanket
* block
0.27%
restrict it by name
68,478 domains name it and close some of its paths
0.73%
name it in robots.txt
183K domains give it rules of their own
Data for Aug 2026. All four percentages
divide by the same 24.91 million domains. Blocked counts both
explicit User-agent: Applebot blocks and blanket
* blocks the crawler inherits.
Historical mentions, HTTP Archive
0.5%
1%
1.5%
Jul 2021
Oct 2022
Jan 2024
Apr 2025
Jul 2026
Share of sites in each month's
HTTP Archive crawl whose robots.txt named
Applebot. This series counts
mentions only (the archive keeps no rule text), comes from a different population than our own
crawl above, and the two are never merged.
High-authority sites blocking Applebot by name
| Domain | OPROpen Page Rank | Blocking since |
|---|---|---|
| springer.com | 9.15/10 | Aug 2026 |
| usatoday.com | 9.08/10 | Aug 2026 |
| msn.com | 9.04/10 | Aug 2026 |
| theatlantic.com | 9.01/10 | Aug 2026 |
| usgs.gov | 8.95/10 | Aug 2026 |
| mashable.com | 8.87/10 | Aug 2026 |
| francetvinfo.fr | 8.87/10 | Aug 2026 |
| pcmag.com | 8.80/10 | Aug 2026 |
| ucl.ac.uk | 8.74/10 | Aug 2026 |
| repubblica.it | 8.71/10 | Aug 2026 |
| idnes.cz | 8.70/10 | Aug 2026 |
| corriere.it | 8.68/10 | Aug 2026 |
| doc.gov | 8.65/10 | Aug 2026 |
| cuny.edu | 8.65/10 | Aug 2026 |
| umass.edu | 8.64/10 | Aug 2026 |
| fedoraproject.org | 8.62/10 | Aug 2026 |
| snopes.com | 8.61/10 | Aug 2026 |
| archives-ouvertes.fr | 8.58/10 | Aug 2026 |
| towardsdatascience.com | 8.57/10 | Aug 2026 |
| bustle.com | 8.57/10 | Aug 2026 |
| helsinki.fi | 8.57/10 | Aug 2026 |
| emory.edu | 8.56/10 | Aug 2026 |
| howtogeek.com | 8.55/10 | Aug 2026 |
| sc.edu | 8.55/10 | Aug 2026 |
| iata.org | 8.55/10 | Aug 2026 |
| huffingtonpost.fr | 8.55/10 | Aug 2026 |
| cbs.nl | 8.55/10 | Aug 2026 |
| france.tv | 8.54/10 | Aug 2026 |
| uvic.ca | 8.54/10 | Aug 2026 |
| imageshack.us | 8.54/10 | Aug 2026 |
Sites whose robots.txt names Applebot (or a legacy
alias) with a full block, ranked by Open Page Rank. Sites blocking every crawler with a blanket
* rule are counted above but not listed here. Since dates start at our first
observation of the rule.