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What is anthropic-ai?

anthropic-ai is an older Anthropic robots.txt token that still appears in many templates.

AI trainingNot documentedNo way to verifyOlder token
Operator
Anthropic
Purpose
AI training. Collects pages to train AI models. Blocking it does not remove you from AI answers.Anthropic no longer documents this token. Trackers list it as a legacy AI training token.
robots.txt token
anthropic-ai
Sample user agent
Anthropic's current crawler page does not mention this token. Trackers call it a legacy training token.User agents change with versions. Match on the token, not the full string.
Follows robots.txt
Not documented by the operator. Anthropic's current page does not mention it.
How to verify
Anthropic doesn't publish a way to verify it.
Sources
Anthropic documentation
Last reviewed

Allow or block anthropic-ai

Block anthropic-ai
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /

Asks anthropic-ai not to crawl any page. Well-behaved crawlers stop; it does not stop anyone who ignores robots.txt.

Allow anthropic-ai
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Allow: /

Lets anthropic-ai crawl everything. You only need this if a broader rule would otherwise block it.

Should you block it?

Blocking anthropic-ai asks Anthropic not to use new crawls of your pages for training. It doesn't remove you from AI answers, and it doesn't affect Claude-SearchBot.

Write a full policy with the AI Crawler Policy Generator

anthropic-ai can't be verified

Anthropic doesn't publish IP ranges, DNS names or signatures for anthropic-ai. The user agent is the only signal, and anyone can copy it, so treat a request that claims to be anthropic-ai as unproven.

Questions about anthropic-ai

Is anthropic-ai safe to allow?

anthropic-ai reads public pages; it does not log in or submit forms. Whether to allow it is about how your content is used, not security.

How do I know a request is really anthropic-ai?

You can't, from the request alone. Anthropic doesn't publish IP ranges, DNS names or signatures for it, so the user agent is the only signal, and anyone can copy that.

How often does anthropic-ai visit?

It depends on your site; Anthropic doesn't publish a schedule. Referscope shows the real visits.

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