Skip to content
Elite Answers

Claude quotes its sources. Give it a sentence worth quoting.

When Claude searches the web, it cites the passages it relied on, not just the sites. That rewards pages that say something specific, and quietly skips the ones that don't.

Check a brand in ClaudeHow tracking works
01How Claude answers

Without web search, Claude answers from what it learned in training. With web search turned on, Claude decides when a question needs current information, runs searches, reads the results and writes an answer with citations. Developers get the same capability through Anthropic's API as a web search tool.

Which crawlers matter

Anthropic runs three agents, each with its own robots.txt token:

  • ClaudeBot collects web content that may contribute to model training.
  • Claude-SearchBot crawls to improve the quality of search results. Anthropic says blocking it can reduce your visibility in Claude's search answers.
  • Claude-User fetches pages when a Claude user asks a question that needs them. Blocking it can reduce your visibility in user-directed searches.

Anthropic says its bots honor robots.txt, and each token is controlled separately, so you can opt out of training without opting out of search. Anthropic doesn't publish IP ranges for these bots, so robots.txt is the main lever. Our robots.txt guide has the rules.

Where results come from

Anthropic's published subprocessor list has named Brave Search as a provider for web search. The practical takeaway: Google rankings alone don't guarantee Claude can find you. Check that your key pages are indexed across search engines, not just one.

How citations display

Claude cites as it writes. Answers include inline citations linking to the pages used. In the API, citations are always on for web search, and each one carries the page URL, its title and a quoted passage of up to 150 characters. Claude cites sentences, not just sites.

02Playbook

5 ways to win in Claude.

  1. 01

    Allow search, decide on training separately

    Allow Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User in robots.txt, and check that your firewall lets them through. ClaudeBot is the training crawler, and blocking it doesn't block the other two.

  2. 02

    Write quotable sentences

    Claude's citations point to specific passages, not just pages. Put the key fact in one clear sentence near the top of each section: what it is, who it's for, what it costs.

  3. 03

    Be findable beyond Google

    Don't assume Google rankings carry over. Check that your important pages are indexed in other search engines too, Brave Search included, and that nothing in your setup blocks non-Google crawlers.

  4. 04

    Ship content in the HTML

    Many AI fetchers don't run JavaScript the way a browser does. Server-render your main content so Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot see the same page your visitors do.

  5. 05

    Publish primary sources

    Documentation, pricing, specs, methodology and original data give Claude something to quote directly. Thin marketing pages give it nothing to cite, so it cites someone else.

03FAQ

Claude, answered.

Other engines:

Does blocking ClaudeBot hide my site from Claude's search?

No. ClaudeBot collects content that may be used for training. Search visibility depends on Claude-SearchBot, which improves search results, and Claude-User, which fetches pages when someone asks Claude a question. Each has its own robots.txt token. Anthropic notes that blocking the search and user agents can reduce your visibility in Claude's answers.

Which search engine does Claude use?

Anthropic's published subprocessor list has named Brave Search as a provider for web search, and Anthropic runs its own Claude-SearchBot to improve search quality. Providers can change, so the durable strategy is to be crawlable and well indexed everywhere rather than tuning for a single index.

How does Claude decide which pages to cite?

Claude searches, reads the results and cites the passages that support each part of its answer. Anthropic doesn't publish a ranking formula. What you can control is relevance to the exact question, access for Anthropic's crawlers, and passages specific enough to stand on their own as evidence. Vague copy rarely survives that last step.

Does Elite Answers track the Claude app or the API?

Elite Answers collects Claude answers through official APIs with web search enabled, which is a close proxy for Claude with search turned on. The consumer app can differ in model version, settings and personalization. That's why we focus on trends across many runs and prompts rather than any single answer.

Somewhere, right now, an AI is recommending your client's competitor.

Elite Answers is invite-only. Request access through Elite Digital and the team will set you up.

Request accessFree AI visibility check