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OAI-SearchBot

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OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI’s crawler for search: it is used “to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT’s search features.” Sites that disallow it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. It is not used to train models. To be eligible for ChatGPT search, allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt and at your firewall or CDN.

What does OAI-SearchBot do?

OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though can still appear as navigational links,” and that OAI-SearchBot is not used to crawl content for training.[1]

How do you allow OAI-SearchBot?

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

OpenAI says robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours to apply to search.[1] Firewall and bot-management rules must also permit it; OpenAI publishes IPs in searchbot.json.[1]

How do you see ChatGPT search traffic?

OpenAI’s publisher FAQ says ChatGPT referral URLs include utm_source=chatgpt.com.[2] See AI referral traffic.

How do you keep a page out of ChatGPT search?

OpenAI’s publisher FAQ says a noindex meta tag prevents a page from being shown, including as a link-only listing, provided the crawler can read the tag.[2]

Frequently asked questions

Is OAI-SearchBot the same as GPTBot?

No. GPTBot is for training; OAI-SearchBot is for search.

Does OpenAI use Bing for ChatGPT search?

OpenAI documents its own crawler for inclusion; it has also described search partners. Allow OAI-SearchBot either way.

Can I allow search but block training?

Yes: allow OAI-SearchBot and disallow GPTBot.

References

Sources accessed October 14, 2026 unless another date is given. See all sources.

  1. “Overview of OpenAI Crawlers”. OpenAI. accessed October 14, 2026.
  2. “Publishers and Developers FAQ”. OpenAI Help Center. accessed October 14, 2026.
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