Applebot may mark the start of an Apple search engine

Apple could be about to take on Google in yet another area. It’s added a new page to its support site that details a web crawler called Applebot.

Web crawlers are used for web indexing. They are essentially the key to any search engine. This is the first time that Apple has confirmed that it has one of its own.Apple says that Applebot is used by Siri, Spotlight Suggestions, and other products. This means that Apple’s products don’t have to process queries through existing search engines as was previously assumed.This is certainly a far cry from a full-blown search engine, but it’s a start. Apple has previously posted job adverts relating to Apple Search. And the deal between Apple and Google, which makes Google's search engine the default in Safari will soon expire.Apple may someday decide to take on Google at what it does best. But it’s unlikely to debut anytime soon. If Apple does decide to go down the search engine route, one can only hope that it begins life with more success than its Maps service did.

Applebot may mark the start of an Apple search engine on ClickOnline.com