Claude SEO: Get Your Brand into Claude Answers with a Link
Claude by Anthropic decides on its own when to search the web and shows its sources next to the answer. We configure access for Anthropic bots, check your site's visibility in the search Claude relies on, and prepare pages that are easy to cite.
Why should a business be among Claude's sources?
A link next to the answer
When Claude searches the web, it adds links to its sources in the answer. A person sees your site at the very moment they are figuring out the question.
An audience that works
Claude is widely used for work: analytics, code, documents, choosing tools and contractors. For B2B, SaaS and expert services this is the target audience.
Less competition
Most companies optimize for Google and ChatGPT, and almost nobody optimizes for Claude. While that holds, getting into the sources is easier.
How does Claude find and choose sources?
Claude does not search the web for every question. For general questions it often answers from its own knowledge, and it starts a search when it needs fresh data, comparisons, rankings or specific companies. Anthropic lists Brave Search among its web search providers, so your site's positions in Brave matter for Claude.
- 01
The page must be accessible to Anthropic bots
If Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User is blocked in robots.txt, on the CDN or in the firewall, Claude cannot find or open the page.
- 02
The site must be in Brave search
Brave has its own index and no equivalent of Search Console. Checking is simple: find your page by its exact title on search.brave.com.
- 03
A clear answer to a specific question
Claude is more willing to cite a page where the answer comes at the start of a section and the facts sit in lists and tables rather than being spread across the text.
- 04
Mentions on other sites
What Claude knows without searching is formed from public texts. The more often reviews, directories and industry media mention a brand, the higher the chance Claude names it even without a search.
Which Anthropic bots should you allow on your site?
| Bot | What it does | What happens if you block it |
|---|---|---|
ClaudeBot | Collects texts that may be used to train models | New site content will not enter the training data |
Claude-SearchBot | Indexes pages for search in Claude | The site is harder to find in answers that use search |
Claude-User | Opens a page when a user asks Claude to check something | Claude cannot read the page at a person's request |
You can forbid training and still appear in answers: block ClaudeBot and allow Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User. Anthropic bots follow robots.txt.
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /
User-agent: Claude-User
Allow: /Check your CDN and WAF too: bot protection at the Cloudflare or hosting level can block them even when robots.txt is open. Anthropic documentation on bots
What does the work include?
Visibility audit
We ask Claude a set of questions from your niche and record whether it mentions your brand, who it cites instead of you, and whether the answers contain false facts. Result: a starting point for comparison.
Technical access
robots.txt, CDN, WAF, server response speed, text availability without JavaScript, sitemap, checking pages in Brave. Result: Anthropic bots see every page that matters.
Content built around questions
Pages and sections that directly answer your customers' questions: comparisons, prices or ranges, terms, FAQ. We add llms.txt as a supporting file. Result: pages that are easy to cite.
Brand mentions
Reviews, directories, industry media, "alternatives" and "comparison" pages on third-party sites. Result: a monthly mentions plan.
Who is this for?
- B2B and SaaSClaude is often used to choose tools and contractors.
- Development and IT servicesClaude's audience is developers, analysts and technical specialists.
- Expert servicesConsulting, legal and financial services — wherever the client first works through the question.
How do we measure the result?
Brand mentions
How often Claude names the company on a fixed set of questions.
Citations
Whether a link to your site appears among the sources of the answer.
Visits
Sessions with the
claude.aisource in GA4.Context
In what light Claude describes the brand and whether it reports the facts correctly.
When to expect the first citations?
Technical changes, such as opening access for bots, start working once the bots crawl the site again. The first citations in answers that use search are usually visible within 1–3 months, and a noticeable growth in mentions within 4–6 months. Claude's knowledge without search is updated only with new model versions, so brand mentions are long-term work.
Frequently asked questions about Claude SEO
Do you need classic SEO for Claude?
Yes. Claude finds pages through search, so a site that is poorly indexed and ranked rarely makes it into the sources. Promotion in Claude is built on top of SEO, not instead of it.
Can I forbid training but still appear in answers?
Yes. Block ClaudeBot in robots.txt and leave Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User open. The first is responsible for training data, the other two for search and for opening pages at a user's request.
Does Claude always search the web?
No. It decides for itself when a search is needed: usually for fresh data, comparisons and questions about specific companies. A user can also ask it to search. For other questions Claude answers from its own knowledge.
How can I see Claude traffic in analytics?
In GA4, visits from Claude show up as referral traffic with the claude.ai source. Analytics does not show mentions without a click, so we check them manually on a set of queries.
How is Claude different from ChatGPT and Perplexity?
All three search the web and show sources, but they rely on different search indexes and decide differently when to search. So visibility in one does not guarantee visibility in another, and we check each separately.
Does Claude read the llms.txt file?
Anthropic has not publicly confirmed that Claude search uses llms.txt. We add it as a supporting file, but the main impact comes from bot access, indexing and page content.
Can you guarantee that Claude will cite a site?
No. Claude's answers depend on the question, the conversation context and the model version. We fix the scope of work and show the dynamics of mentions, citations and visits every month.
Check what Claude knows about your brand
Leave your site address and we will show what Claude answers to queries in your niche, whether Anthropic bots can see your site and which competitors get into the sources.
Get an auditOr write to us: hello@luchanlabs.com