Overview
Applebot is Apple's web crawler that indexes content for Siri, Spotlight Suggestions, Safari, and other Apple services. When a user asks Siri a question or searches in Spotlight, the results may come from Applebot-crawled content.
Unlike search engine crawlers focused on web search, Applebot serves Apple's ecosystem — powering suggested results when you type in Safari's address bar, Siri knowledge answers, and the #images feature in Messages. It reads OG tags as part of its content understanding.
Applebot's crawling is less aggressive than Googlebot or bingbot. It focuses on high-quality, popular content and respects robots.txt with Applebot-specific directives.
User-Agent String
Applebot identifies itself with the following user-agent string:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_1) AppleWebKit/600.2.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0.2 Safari/600.2.5 (Applebot/0.1; +https://www.apple.com/go/applebot)How Applebot Handles OG Images
Applebot reads OG tags to understand page content for Apple's services. OG images may appear in Siri results and Safari suggestions.
Meta Tags Read
og:imageog:titleog:descriptionog:urlog:typeog:site_name| Preferred Size | 1200 × 630 |
| Cache Duration | Unknown — Apple does not disclose crawl frequency |
Caching Behavior
Tied to Apple's crawl schedule. No public tool to request re-crawling.
Fallback Behavior
Applebot extracts content from multiple sources including OG tags, meta description, structured data, and page content. It does not rely solely on OG tags.
Things to Know
- Applebot supports the standard robots meta tag (name="robots") for page-level control of indexing behavior.
- Apple does not provide public webmaster tools — there's no way to see how Applebot views your site.
- Applebot uses the same WebKit rendering engine as Safari, so JavaScript-rendered content is supported.
- The crawler prioritizes content quality and popularity in its indexing decisions.
robots.txt
Fully respects robots.txt. Supports Applebot-specific User-agent rules and the standard robots meta tag for page-level control.
User-agent: Applebot
Allow: /How to Test
Apple does not provide public webmaster tools or a debugger. You can verify Applebot is crawling your site by checking server logs for the Applebot user-agent string.
- Check your server access logs for requests with 'Applebot' in the user-agent.
- Ensure your OG tags are in the initial HTML (not JavaScript-rendered) for the most reliable indexing.
- Use structured data (schema.org) alongside OG tags to help Applebot understand your content.
You can also use the MyOG OG Preview tool to check how your OG tags are configured before testing with Applebot.
FAQ
What is Applebot?
Applebot is Apple's web crawler that indexes content for Siri knowledge answers, Spotlight Suggestions, Safari suggested results, and other Apple services. It reads page content, Open Graph tags, and structured data.
How do I block Applebot?
Add a User-agent: Applebot / Disallow: / rule to your robots.txt file, or use the standard <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag on individual pages. Blocking Applebot will prevent your content from appearing in Siri results and Safari suggestions.
Does Apple have webmaster tools?
No. Unlike Google and Bing, Apple does not provide public webmaster tools. There's no official way to submit your site, check indexing status, or debug how Applebot sees your pages. Monitor your server logs for Applebot requests instead.
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