All plans
Claude web search reached every plan worldwide in May 2025, with citations on every answer.
Anthropic, Claude web search now available globally on all plans, May 2025
3
Anthropic crawlers. ClaudeBot for training, Claude-User for live questions, Claude-SearchBot for search.
Anthropic Help Center, article 8896518, Oct 2026
73%
of picks for water damage restoration across the assistants we record gave speed and availability as a reason.
Picked by Agents, How AI picks, October 2026, pickedbyagents.com/how-ai-picks
Where Claude gets local business information
Claude searches the web when a question needs current facts, then answers with citations. Anthropic's help center says Claude may use your location, inferred from your IP address, when you ask for localized results. Its developer tools let an app pass an approximate city and region the same way.
Anthropic has not published which index powers that search. In March 2025 it added Brave Search to its list of web search subprocessors, and a July 2026 check found it still listed. Independent testing at the time matched Claude's citations to Brave's results.
In May 2026 MediaPost reported, from an outside blogger's tests, that Claude used Google Maps and the Places API for hotel searches. Anthropic has not confirmed this. If it holds, your Google Business Profile matters for Claude too.
Claude also reads pages directly. Anthropic runs three crawlers. Claude-User fetches pages when someone asks Claude a question, and Claude-SearchBot indexes pages for search. Anthropic warns that blocking either may reduce your visibility in its answers.
What Claude likely weighs
We cannot tell you what Claude rewards from our own runs, because it is not in our network yet. What we can show is what the assistants we do record rewarded, trade by trade.
Across those assistants, speed and availability led for water damage (73% of picks) and plumbing (67%). Reviews and ratings led for garage doors (78%) and HVAC (50%). Licenses and credentials led for electricians (66%) and roofers (63%). Price and financing led for pest control (68%).
Every assistant we record rewards facts it can read and quote. Claude cites its sources by design, so a page that states the fact plainly is the page it can cite.
Step by step, how to get Claude to name you
- 01
Let Claude's crawlers in
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and make sure Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot are not disallowed. Ask whoever runs your firewall or CDN not to block them either.
- 02
Check your business in Brave Search
Search your trade and city at search.brave.com. If your site does not appear, fix that first, since Brave is the search vendor Anthropic lists.
- 03
Complete your Google Business Profile
Hours, services with price ranges, service area and a booking link, set in Google Business Profile. It also feeds the other assistants, and covers the reported Places use.
- 04
Put the deciding fact for your trade on each service page
Same day availability for emergency trades, your license number for electrical and roofing, a starting price for pest control, your rating for garage doors and HVAC. Plain text, near the top.
- 05
Name the places you serve
Claude localizes by the asker's city. List the towns and ZIP codes you cover on a service area page, not just the metro name.
- 06
Make your listings agree
Match your name, phone, hours and services across your site, Google, Yelp, BBB and your trade's directories. Claude cites sources, and conflicting sources give it a reason to pick someone else.
- 07
Give it somewhere to send the customer
A booking or quote link that works on a phone, on your homepage and each service page.
How to check whether Claude recommends you today
Open claude.ai or the Claude app, make sure web search is on, and ask a customer's question with your city or ZIP code. For example, "Who is the best AC repair company in Austin, TX?" or "My garage door won't open and the spring looks broken. Find someone in Chandler, AZ who can fix it today."
Look at who it names and click its citations. Those links show which pages and directories it trusted. If your site or listings are not among them, that is where to start. Ask a few times and on different days.
Our free pick report runs your customers' questions in the assistants our network records and shows who was named and why. Claude is not one of them yet, and the fixes the report finds are the same facts Claude needs to cite you.
Questions we get asked
Does Claude recommend local businesses?
- Claude can search the web and answer local questions with citations, using your approximate location from your IP address. We have not recorded its local answers, so we cannot say who it tends to pick.
What search engine does Claude use?
- Anthropic does not say so in its product pages. Its subprocessor list has named Brave Search for web search since March 2025, and outside testing matched Claude's citations to Brave results. Image results in Claude are powered by Bing, per Anthropic's help center.
Does Claude use Google Business Profile or Google Maps?
- A May 2026 MediaPost report said Claude used the Google Places API for hotel searches, based on an outside blogger's tests. Anthropic has not confirmed it. Keeping your Google profile complete helps with every assistant either way.
Should I block ClaudeBot?
- Blocking ClaudeBot only opts you out of model training. Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot are the ones that read your site for answers and search, and Anthropic says blocking them may reduce your visibility.
How is getting recommended by Claude different from ChatGPT?
- Both search live and cite sources, but they use different search vendors and weigh different sources. Treat them as separate checks and run your questions in each.
Your free report
Start with the facts every assistant needs
Get a free pick report with your customers' questions run in the assistants we record, who they named, and the facts missing on your side. The same fixes are what Claude needs to cite you.
- 01We read your site and work out what your customers ask an assistant for.
- 02We run the top assistants on those requests in your area.
- 03You get where you rank, whether they would book you and why, and what to change first.