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Claude.How it picks local businesses.

What Anthropic documents about where Claude gets its answers, how to check what it says about you, and what to fix first.

The short answer

Updated

Claude answers web questions with a search feature that cites its sources, and Anthropic says it may use your approximate location for local results. Anthropic documents three crawlers, including Claude-SearchBot for search and Claude-User for fetching pages when someone asks. Anthropic says maps in Claude are powered by Google Maps, so your Google listing shapes what Claude shows on a map.

Where it looks.As the maker documents it.

Each row links to the maker's or partner's own words, with the date we last checked it.

Cited web search
Anthropic says every web search response in Claude includes citations so users can check the sources.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026
Location
Anthropic says Claude may use location inferred from the IP address when a request needs localised results.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026
Google Maps
Anthropic says maps and weather content in Claude is powered by Google Maps.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026
Bing image search
Anthropic says image search in Claude is powered by Bing.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026

Its crawlers.Let them in.

If your robots.txt blocks these user agents, the engine may not read your site.

Claude-SearchBot
Indexes the web to improve Claude's search results. Anthropic says blocking it may reduce your visibility in user search results. Docs
Claude-User
Fetches pages when someone asks Claude a question. Anthropic says blocking it may reduce your visibility in user-directed web search. Docs
ClaudeBot
Collects content that may be used for training. Blocking it excludes your future content from training data. Docs

Check it yourself.One prompt, two minutes.

Swap in your trade and town. Ask it a few times: answers change between runs.

Ask Claude

Search the web: which [trade] companies in [city] are best reviewed for [job]? Cite your sources.

What to fix first.In this order.

  1. 01Let Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User inAllow both in robots.txt for every subdomain. Anthropic says blocking by IP may not work reliably.
  2. 02Get your Google listing rightClaude's maps come from Google Maps, which shows your Business Profile.Google Business Profile guide
  3. 03Give it pages to citeClaude's answers cite sources. Service pages that answer price, area and timing questions directly are easier to cite.

Questions people ask.Short answers.

Which search engine does Claude use?

Anthropic's help pages say image search is powered by Bing and maps by Google Maps. Reports say web search uses Brave, citing Anthropic's subprocessor list, which we couldn't open, so we don't state it as fact.

Will blocking ClaudeBot hide me from Claude's answers?

No. ClaudeBot collects training data. Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User are the ones that affect search and answers.

Is Claude part of the Damex free check?

Not yet. The free check covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Copilot.

Sources

  1. Anthropic: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web? · checked Oct 31, 2026
  2. Anthropic: Enabling and using web search · checked Oct 31, 2026
  3. Anthropic: Visual and interactive content · checked Oct 31, 2026

By Shakhawat Ullah Badhon, Founder, Damex Digital. Published Nov 1, 2026, updated Nov 1, 2026.