OAI-SearchBot: purpose, robots.txt rules and access checks

Technical reference

Operator	OpenAI
Class	Search / retrieval
HTTP User-Agent	Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36; compatible; OAI-SearchBot/1.4; +https://openai.com/searchbot
Citation impact	Opting out excludes content from ChatGPT search answers; navigational links can still appear.
IP verification	Official IP ranges or verification reference

Header versions can change. Use the product token for robots.txt matching and consult the OpenAI crawler documentation before changing enforcement. Reference checked on 18 October 2026.

How do I allow OAI-SearchBot?

Merge this group into the robots.txt served from the page's origin. Keep any path exclusions that still apply. A named group may stop inheriting the wildcard group's exclusions.

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User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

Allow retrieval and block training

This example separates the operator's documented identities where possible. It changes crawl or data-use preferences; it does not grant server access. User-triggered agents may follow a different robots.txt policy.

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User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Use the interactive robots.txt builder for a per-bot policy. Test the final file against the exact page path before deploying it.

What if the CDN returns HTTP 403?

A robots.txt allow rule cannot override an HTTP 403, a login gate or a JavaScript challenge. Compare the returned body with the public page and locate the request in CDN security events. Grant an exception only after verifying the sender, scoped to the affected public routes.

The scanner uses its own network. A successful header probe does not verify OpenAI access, and a refused probe does not establish a vendor-wide block. See the WAF troubleshooting guide.

Check your site's rules for OAI-SearchBot

Public page URL Check OAI-SearchBot access

Frequently asked questions

What does OAI-SearchBot do?

OpenAI operates OAI-SearchBot. OAI-SearchBot handles automatic crawling for ChatGPT search.

Does blocking OAI-SearchBot affect citations?

Opting out excludes content from ChatGPT search answers; navigational links can still appear.

How do I verify a OAI-SearchBot request?

Use the operator's published verification reference linked on this page. Match the source IP, not just the User-Agent header. A scanner probe comes from its own network.