# Daily snapshot 2026-10-26

The numbers come from one website. They describe what these crawlers did here, not across the web.

Period: 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z to 2026-10-27T00:00:00Z (00:00Z to 24:00Z). Generated 2026-10-27T03:18:38.045Z. Schema version 1. Licence CC BY 4.0. Cite as: Benes, Peter. Rattlesnakes By Mail: A Field Guide to the Crawlers of the Web. benesthemenace.com. Method: https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/method

Requests on 2026-10-26 by crawler, against each crawler's 28-day median. ClaudeBot: 62 requests, 28-day median 48; Googlebot: 38 requests, 28-day median 13; Bingbot: 19 requests, 28-day median 11; ChatGPT-User: 9 requests, 28-day median 0; OAI-SearchBot: 8 requests, 28-day median 5; GPTBot: 4 requests, 28-day median 3; Applebot: 2 requests, 28-day median 0.

## Facts

- F-261026-01 ChatGPT-User made 9 requests on 2026-10-26, its highest daily count since the site launched on 2026-09-13; its previous high was 3, on 2026-09-19. https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/chatgpt-user
- F-261026-02 ChatGPT-User returned on 2026-10-26 after 13 days without a request. https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/chatgpt-user
- F-261026-03 ChatGPT-User fetched 9 pages on 2026-10-26 in response to people's requests; the most fetched was /data. https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/chatgpt-user
- F-261026-04 Bingbot first fetched the 2026-10-25 snapshot 3 h 59 min after it was published. https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/bingbot
- F-261026-05 Googlebot first fetched the 2026-10-25 snapshot 10 h 31 min after it was published. https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/googlebot
- F-261026-06 Every request on 2026-10-26 from ClaudeBot, Googlebot, Bingbot, ChatGPT-User and OAI-SearchBot was verified against the operator's published method. https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/method


## Records selected at random for 2026-10-27

Ten records from the field guide are chosen at random each day. The selection and how it was drawn are listed in snapshot.json.

- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/questions
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/compare/bingbot-vs-claude-searchbot
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/claims/10
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/compare/claudebot-vs-oai-adsbot
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/compare/google-extended-vs-gptbot
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/compare/claude-user-vs-oai-searchbot
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/compare/bingbot-vs-oai-searchbot
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/claims/36
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/claims/27
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/claims/60


## Crawlers

| Crawler | Requests | Verified share | Distinct paths | 28-day median | Sweep day | First path | robots.txt | sitemap |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [ClaudeBot](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/claudebot) | 62 | 100% | 4 | 48 | no | /robots.txt | 15 | 47 |
| [Googlebot](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/googlebot) | 38 | 100% | 26 | 13 | no | /robots.txt | 12 | 0 |
| [Bingbot](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/bingbot) | 19 | 100% | 19 | 11 | no | /sitemap.xml | 0 | 1 |
| [ChatGPT-User](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/chatgpt-user) | 9 | 100% | 5 | 0 | no | /data | 0 | 0 |
| [OAI-SearchBot](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/oai-searchbot) | 8 | 100% | 3 | 5 | no | /robots.txt | 5 | 0 |
| [GPTBot](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/gptbot) | 4 | 100% | 4 | 3 | no | /sitemap-index.xml | 0 | 3 |
| [Applebot](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/applebot) | 2 | 100% | 2 | 0 | no | /robots.txt | 1 | 0 |

## MCP calls

| Client | Tool | Calls |
| --- | --- | --- |
| BrickBlueBot | get_snapshot | 1 |
| BrickBlueBot | identify_user_agent | 1 |
| BrickBlueBot | list_changes | 1 |
| BrickBlueBot | lookup_crawler | 1 |
| rokmcp-probe | list_changes | 1 |
| verifymcp-probe | __verifymcp_auth_probe_d57a1fff793c8aa3__ | 1 |

## Snapshot pickup

For each of the previous seven snapshots, the first fetch by each verified crawler, in minutes after publication, and the c tag on that fetch.

| Snapshot | Crawler | Minutes after publication | Tag |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2026-10-25 | Bingbot | 239 | none |
| 2026-10-25 | Googlebot | 631 | none |
| 2026-10-24 | Bingbot | 233 | none |
| 2026-10-23 | Bingbot | 234 | none |
| 2026-10-23 | Googlebot | 423 | none |
| 2026-10-23 | GoogleOther | 584 | none |
| 2026-10-22 | ClaudeBot | 214 | none |
| 2026-10-22 | Googlebot | 225 | none |
| 2026-10-22 | GoogleOther | 225 | h |
| 2026-10-22 | Bingbot | 235 | none |

## Fetches made for people

Verified fetches by AI products in response to a person's request, by page.

| Product | Page | Requests | Verified |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ChatGPT-User | /data | 2 | 2 |
| ChatGPT-User | /data/latest/observation_daily.json | 2 | 2 |
| ChatGPT-User | /method | 2 | 2 |
| ChatGPT-User | /observed | 2 | 2 |
| ChatGPT-User | /data/latest/mcp_calls_daily.json | 1 | 1 |

## Open questions

- [Can robots.txt cleanly separate "allow this page for search or citation" from "block it for training," and does that distinction hold across every major AI platform?](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/questions/eaaa86558b443873916376dc4d0546f60ee5d890631698c41768fb619582451c) (id 26, asked 5 times)
- [How can AI citation performance be measured accurately, given there is no equivalent of a Search Console report for citations?](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/questions/e61346be3fef727db8cefe0257815575a03a33698acfb1e0059140169dbd35ee) (id 34, asked 5 times)
- [Was a specific document used in a model's training, fine-tuning, or evaluation?](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/questions/97b24d1729c7f32e2e09cb297328a2f7977235c746960d243536ee8b9e4e494d) (id 38, asked 4 times)
- [Why wasn't a specific page cited by an AI answer instead of a competitor's page?](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/questions/e08c55e6af0f8858dae0af2af4eb4caafe28dfb739f1ed4163e9cb0d954bb2ff) (id 7, asked 3 times)
- [How much do backlinks, brand mentions, structured data, reviews, forum discussions, publisher reputation, and content freshness each matter to being cited?](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/questions/064f0033dab1091575ab29137f558668ff6193e891221987fd9523c31b4ff78f) (id 11, asked 3 times)

If you can answer one of these with a source, send a note: POST https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/notes with target question:<id>, where <id> is the number shown with the question, and body=<your answer and its source>.

## Ask for something this snapshot lacks

What data about web crawlers did you look for and not find? Search https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/search?q=your+question. Searches with no match are recorded as gaps. A gap is published at /questions only when an editor publishes it; nothing is published automatically. To suggest something this daily snapshot should include, send a note with target snapshot:261026.

To send it, POST https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/notes as a web form or as JSON with target=snapshot:261026 and body=<your note>. The same note can be sent with target_type=snapshot and target_id=261026. The optional author_claim field says who is writing: a person, a model or an agent.

## Links

- [Daily counts for every crawler](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed)
- [The crawler records](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/crawlers)
- [Method](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/method)
- [Data](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/data)
- [MCP endpoint (POST JSON-RPC)](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/mcp)
- [Dataset repository](https://github.com/crank-box/rattlesnakesbymail-data)
- [All snapshots](https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/snapshots)
- [This snapshot as JSON](https://261026.rattlesnakesbymail.com/snapshot.json)
- [This snapshot as Markdown](https://261026.rattlesnakesbymail.com/snapshot.md)
- [This snapshot as CSV](https://261026.rattlesnakesbymail.com/snapshot.csv)
- [Facts as JSON](https://261026.rattlesnakesbymail.com/facts.json)
- [About this site, for automated readers](https://261026.rattlesnakesbymail.com/about-this-site.md)
- [Previous snapshot (2026-10-25)](https://261025.rattlesnakesbymail.com/?c=p)

Next snapshot: [2026-10-27](https://261027.rattlesnakesbymail.com/?c=p)