Safe Reported AI & LLM Bots

Claude Web (Deprecated)

Operated by Anthropic

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
Claude-Web
Category:
AI & LLM Bots
Operator:
Anthropic
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
None published by Anthropic
Evidence:
Verified by AI Crawler Check: in 477 top-10k robots.txt files

Reported, not operator documented

Anthropic has not published a crawler page that names Claude-Web. It is listed here on our own evidence. Verified by AI Crawler Check: 477 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 carry a rule for Claude-Web, so site owners treat it as a real crawler name (how we measure this). That proves the spelling is in use, not who sends it. Legacy Anthropic token. Anthropic consolidated to ClaudeBot in 2024; the string still appears in logs and in many robots.txt files, so many sites still rule on it.

What that means for you: the Claude-Web rule on this page is the best available spelling, but Anthropic has made no statement of purpose, crawl rate or robots.txt compliance. Treat a Claude-Web request in your logs as a clue, not proof of who sent it, and add a firewall rule if that traffic matters to you. If the operator publishes documentation, this profile moves to Official docs.

What is Claude Web (Deprecated)?

Claude Web (Deprecated) is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Anthropic. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Anthropic's assistant.

Claude Web (Deprecated) is an on-demand AI fetcher operated by Anthropic. It retrieves a page only when a user explicitly asks an AI assistant or agent to read, summarize, or act on a specific URL. Because it is triggered by real user intent rather than bulk crawling, blocking it mainly prevents users from pulling your content into Anthropic's assistant.
Claude Web (Deprecated) uses the user-agent token Claude-Web. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Claude Web (Deprecated)?

✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Claude Web (Deprecated) does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Claude Web (Deprecated) is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

Want to see whether Claude Web (Deprecated) actually visits you? Read how do I monitor AI bot traffic to my website?

How to block Claude Web (Deprecated) with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: Claude-Web</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: Claude-Web Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: Claude-Web Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: Claude-Web Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Claude Web (Deprecated) if ($http_user_agent ~* "Claude-Web") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Claude Web (Deprecated) SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Claude-Web" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Claude Web (Deprecated) safe to allow?

Claude Web (Deprecated) is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Anthropic has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.
Anthropic publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern for Claude Web (Deprecated), so the user-agent string cannot be verified. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.

What does Claude Web (Deprecated) do?

Understanding Claude Web (Deprecated)'s purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Fetches a page only when a user asks an AI assistant to read it
  • Summarizes or extracts the URL the user provided
  • Triggered by real user intent, not bulk crawling
  • Low traffic volume compared with training crawlers
  • Blocking it prevents users from pulling your content into the assistant

Claude Web (Deprecated) in context

Claude Web (Deprecated) is a user-triggered agent operated by Anthropic. In plain terms, it fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it. Our database files it under AI and LLM crawlers and ranks it Tier 2, important crawlers from established AI and search operators. 74 of the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database share this tier.

Its safety rating is safe and its blocking impact is low. So the decision about Claude Web (Deprecated) rests on what you want from Anthropic, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Claude Web (Deprecated)

In our own scan of the Tranco top 10,000 (5,583 valid robots.txt files), 477 files (8.5%) name Claude-Web in a User-agent line. That shows site owners treat the token as a real crawler worth a rule. It does not, on its own, prove who operates it.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Claude Web (Deprecated)'s operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the Claude Web (Deprecated) rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.

Anthropic crawlers and close alternatives

Claude Web (Deprecated) is one of 6 Anthropic crawlers in our database. A User-agent: Claude-Web group controls Claude Web (Deprecated) only; the other Anthropic tokens below need their own lines.

  • Claude-Web: this crawler (Tier 2)
  • anthropic-ai: Anthropic AI (Deprecated), collects pages to train AI models (Tier 2)
  • Claude-Code: Claude Code Agent, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 2)
  • Claude-SearchBot: Claude Search, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 1)
  • Claude-User: Claude User Agent, fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it (Tier 1)
  • ClaudeBot: Claude AI Training, collects pages to train AI models (Tier 1)

To give Claude Web (Deprecated) the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: Claude-Web with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Claude Web (Deprecated) differently, give it its own group.

Other AI and LLM crawlers that do the same job (fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it) include ChatGPT Agent from OpenAI, ChatGPT Operator from OpenAI, ChatGPT-User from OpenAI, ChatGPT-User/2.0 from OpenAI, GrokAgent from xAI, muse- from Meta. Deciding about Claude Web (Deprecated) is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded Claude-Web on March 17, 2026. We could not find a page where Anthropic names it, so treat the token as reported rather than documented.

Which rule Claude Web (Deprecated) actually follows

Claude Web (Deprecated) reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names Claude-Web, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. Claude Web (Deprecated) looks for a group naming Claude-Web. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
  2. Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
  3. The surprise. /private/ is open to Claude Web (Deprecated), because that rule lives in the * group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeat Disallow: /private/ inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Claude Web (Deprecated) if the file also has a User-agent: Claude-Web group?

No. Once a group names it, Claude Web (Deprecated) reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.

Related: how AI engines choose their sources

Test yourself: will blocking Claude Web (Deprecated) remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Claude Web (Deprecated) is a user-triggered agent, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: claude-web the same as User-agent: Claude-Web?

Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.

Should you allow Claude Web (Deprecated)? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Claude Web (Deprecated) by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itAllow it. Claude Web (Deprecated) fetches pages for answers, so blocking it can remove you from them.
You license content and want to stop AI trainingBlocking it does not stop training, because Claude Web (Deprecated) is a user-triggered agent. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shopAllow it on product and category pages, which are the pages shoppers ask assistants about.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Claude Web (Deprecated) on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for Claude-Web. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group Claude Web (Deprecated) follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, and Allow wins a tie.
  3. Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Claude Web (Deprecated) even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our crawler access checker to see how Claude Web (Deprecated) and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Claude Web (Deprecated)

The errors we see most often with Claude Web (Deprecated) in the files and firewalls we test:

  1. Assuming a robots.txt rule will stop Claude Web (Deprecated). User-triggered fetches act for a person, and some operators say robots.txt may not apply to them. Check the operator's statement above.
  2. Blocking Claude Web (Deprecated) as if it were a bulk crawler. It fetches one page because a person asked; blocking it means that person's assistant cannot read your page.
  3. Counting Claude Web (Deprecated) visits as crawl volume. Each request maps to a real user question, which makes the paths it requests a useful signal of what people ask about you.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Claude Web (Deprecated) from outside after every change.

Spotting Claude Web (Deprecated) in your logs

robots.txt says what Claude Web (Deprecated) may do; your access logs show what it actually did.

Count requests

On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):

grep -iE "Claude-Web" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "Claude-Web" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the Claude Web (Deprecated) user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

  • Claude-Web: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Claude Web (Deprecated) request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What user-agent string does Claude Web (Deprecated) use?
Claude Web (Deprecated) is reported to identify itself with Claude-Web. Evidence that the spelling is in real use comes from our own robots.txt study: 477 of the 5,583 valid robots.txt files in the Tranco top 10,000 name it (fetched October 20, 2026), not from Anthropic, which has not published crawler documentation naming it. Use it in robots.txt as the best available match, and treat a request carrying it as a clue rather than proof of who sent it.
Is Claude Web (Deprecated) safe?
Claude Web (Deprecated) is rated Safe in this directory, meaning there are no credible public reports of abusive crawling under this name. It is a Reported token: Anthropic has not published documentation for it, so its purpose, crawl rate and robots.txt behaviour are not confirmed by the operator, and anyone can send the same user-agent string. Allow or block it on its stated purpose, and back the robots.txt rule with a firewall rule if the traffic matters to you.
Will blocking Claude Web (Deprecated) hurt my SEO?
✅ No SEO Impact - Blocking Claude Web (Deprecated) does not affect your rankings in Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Claude Web (Deprecated) is an AI crawler, not a traditional search indexer. You can freely block it via User-agent / Disallow: / without any SEO penalty.
How do I block Claude Web (Deprecated) in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /

This instructs Claude Web (Deprecated) not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).
Does Claude Web (Deprecated) respect robots.txt?
Not documented. Anthropic has published no statement that Claude Web (Deprecated) reads robots.txt. A rule for Claude-Web will stop a client that chooses to honour it; for enforcement, add a firewall or CDN rule as well.
How do I verify if Claude Web (Deprecated) is crawling my site?
Search your access logs for Claude-Web (for example grep -i "Claude-Web" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Because the operator publishes no IP ranges or reverse-DNS pattern, a match shows that something used the name, not that Anthropic sent it.

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