What is OAI-SearchBot?
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's search crawler. It is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features. It is separate from GPTBot, which crawls for model training.
Last verified 2026-09-30 against the operator's documentation. All bots
OAI-SearchBot at a glance
- Operator
- OpenAI
- Type
- AI search crawlers
- Purpose
- Surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features.
- robots.txt token
OAI-SearchBot- Example 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- How to verify
- Check that the source IP is in the ranges OpenAI publishes for OAI-SearchBot.
- IP ranges
- https://openai.com/searchbot.json
- Operator documentation
- https://platform.openai.com/docs/bots
How often is OAI-SearchBot impersonated?
For the median organisation, 11% of requests claiming to be OAI-SearchBot failed verification.
Measured between 3 July 2026 and 28 September 2026 across organisations protected by Centinel. We only publish a share when at least five organisations each saw enough of these requests. Pooled across all of their requests, the share was 4%: a few large organisations carry most of the traffic, so the median organisation is the better guide to what yours will see.
This directory measures requests between 3 July 2026 and 28 September 2026. The fake crawler report covers its own, earlier window (late June to 21 September 2026), so its figures differ from the ones here. Read it for the method.
Have a request that claims to be OAI-SearchBot? Check its IP address.
Should you block OAI-SearchBot?
- Allow it if
- you want ChatGPT search to find and link your pages.
- Block it if
- you do not want your pages shown in ChatGPT search answers at all.
- What blocking changes
- OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
To block it, add this group to your robots.txt. OpenAI uses the OAI-SearchBot token for search opt-outs.
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /robots.txt only asks. It does nothing against a client that ignores it or only pretends to be OAI-SearchBot. Stopping those takes verification at your edge.
OAI-SearchBot: common questions
See which bots reach your site, and which of them are who they claim to be.
What is OAI-SearchBot?
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's search crawler. It is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features. It is separate from GPTBot, which crawls for model training.
How do I verify that a request is really OAI-SearchBot?
Check that the source IP is in the ranges OpenAI publishes for OAI-SearchBot. The user agent alone proves nothing: any client can send it.
How do I block OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt?
Add a group for User-agent: OAI-SearchBot with Disallow: /. OpenAI uses the OAI-SearchBot token for search opt-outs. robots.txt only asks. A client that ignores it, or pretends to be OAI-SearchBot, has to be stopped at your edge.
What happens if I block OAI-SearchBot?
OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
Related bots
- GPTBot (OpenAI): Crawls content that may be used to train OpenAI's foundation models.
- ChatGPT-User (OpenAI): Visits a page when a ChatGPT or Custom GPT user's request needs it.
- Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic): Indexes pages to improve Claude's search results.
- PerplexityBot (Perplexity): Surfaces and links websites in Perplexity's search results.
- DuckAssistBot (DuckDuckGo): Crawls in real time to support DuckDuckGo's AI-assisted answers.