apple.com: what it tells AI crawlers

On 27 October 2026, apple.com's robots.txt allowed all of GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and CCBot.

Last verified 2026-10-28 03:59 UTC (daily run of 2026-10-27). Proof for that day.

Panel
top 1k (Tranco)
robots.txt
ok (HTTP 200) · https://www.apple.com/robots.txt
unchanged since 2026-10-26 · sha256 3115f45c98cfa193… · view as recorded
The * group
allows applies to every agent without its own group

Per AI bot, 2026-10-27

User agentVerdictHow
GPTBotallowsthrough the * group
OAI-SearchBotallowsthrough the * group
ChatGPT-Userallowsthrough the * group
ClaudeBotallowsthrough the * group
Claude-SearchBotallowsthrough the * group
Claude-Userallowsthrough the * group
PerplexityBotallowsthrough the * group
Perplexity-Userallowsthrough the * group
Googlebotallowsthrough the * group
Google-Extendedallowsthrough the * group
Applebot-Extendedallowsthrough the * group
CCBotallowsthrough the * group
Bytespiderallowsthrough the * group
Meta-ExternalAgentallowsthrough the * group
Amazonbotallowsthrough the * group

Other signals

Publishes /llms.txtno
Publishes /ai.txtno
Publishes /.well-known/tdmrep.jsonno
Reserves TDM rights (TDMRep file, header or meta)no
Declares Content Signals (robots.txt or header)no
Says ai-train=no in a Content Signalno
Points to an RSL licence (robots.txt License line or Link header)no
Answers with an x402 payment offer (lower bound: only the homepage is probed)no
Answers HTTP 402 Payment Required (lower bound: only the homepage is probed)no
Sends noai / noimageai directivesno
Refused our fetcher (403 / challenge)no

robots.txt as recorded sha256 a6841bad5cbc0053…

# robots.txt for https://www.apple.com/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*shop/browse/overlay/*
Disallow: /*shop/iphone/payments/overlay/*
Disallow: /cn/*/aow/*
Disallow: /tmall*
Allow: /ac/globalnav/2.0/*/images/ac-globalnav/globalnav/search/* 	

User-agent: Baiduspider
Disallow: /*
Allow: /cn/*
Allow: /cn-edu/*
Allow: /cn-k12/*

User-agent: HaoSouSpider
Disallow: /*
Allow: /cn/*
Allow: /cn-edu/*
Allow: /cn-k12/*

User-agent: Sogou web spider
Disallow: /*
Allow: /cn/*
Allow: /cn-k12/*

User-agent: Sogou inst spider
Disallow: /*
Allow: /cn/*
Allow: /cn-k12/*

User-agent: Sogou spider2
Disallow: /*
Allow: /cn/*
Allow: /cn-k12/*

#DaumWebMasterTool:fe46641ef2e4f3f25544ad9d70c6029df24dd184fad54154abaa3c263cf5a09a:h7Tb+WCGBcuKBnKRAHQGEQ==

Sitemap: https://www.apple.com/shop/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.apple.com/autopush/sitemap/sitemap-index.xml
Sitemap: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.apple.com/retail/sitemap/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.apple.com/today/sitemap-index.xml

robots.txt versions

FromThroughStateVersion
2026-10-262026-10-27ok 2003115f45c98cf

Timeline of changes

DateWhat changed
No changes since the first observation (2026-10-26).

Reconstructed history (Common Crawl)

From Common Crawl's robots.txt captures: what CCBot was served, one crawl per quarter. A separate series from the daily observations above; a 403 here means Common Crawl was refused, not this ledger.

CrawlHostStateGPTBotOAI-SearchBotChatGPT-UserClaudeBotClaude-SearchBotClaude-UserPerplexityBot
2026-09-21 CC-MAIN-2026-39www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2025-09-15 CC-MAIN-2025-38www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2024-09-16 CC-MAIN-2024-38www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2023-10-02 CC-MAIN-2023-40www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2022-10-03 CC-MAIN-2022-40www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2021-09-27 CC-MAIN-2021-39www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2020-09-28 CC-MAIN-2020-40www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2019-09-23 CC-MAIN-2019-39www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2018-09-24 CC-MAIN-2018-39www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2018-01-29 CC-MAIN-2018-05www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-10-23 CC-MAIN-2017-43www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-09-25 CC-MAIN-2017-39www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-07-24 CC-MAIN-2017-30www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-04-24 CC-MAIN-2017-17www.apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2017-01-23 CC-MAIN-2017-04apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2016-10-03 CC-MAIN-2016-40apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows
2016-09-05 CC-MAIN-2016-36apple.comok viewallowsallowsunknownallowsallowsunknownallows

Evidence

Every daily observation of apple.com is a leaf in that day's Merkle tree. Proof of the robots.txt line for 2026-10-27: audit path (JSON), day root and OpenTimestamps proof (complete (bitcoin block 973493)).

API: https://infrarabbit.com/crawlers/api/v1/policy/apple.com