OAI-SearchBot serves ChatGPT's search and source function, not model training. OpenAI notes that website owners should not block this bot if their content is to appear as a source in ChatGPT Search.
To be visible in ChatGPT, allow the bot in The robots.txt is a publicly accessible text file in a site's root directory. It tells crawlers which URLs they may fetch and therefore controls crawling.Open glossary entry →:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBotAllow: /
A common mistake is checking only GPTBot. For ChatGPT visibility, however, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User are decisive. If OAI-SearchBot is the crawler documented by OpenAI for ChatGPT Search. It fetches content so that public websites can appear as a source in ChatGPT summaries, snippets and answers.Open glossary entry → is allowed in robots.txt but blocked by a firewall or A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of distributed servers that delivers static content closer to the user, reducing loading times.Open glossary entry → with status code 403, content is still missing. Server logs should therefore be checked for actual bot access.
Controlling access via robots.txt #
Like other well-behaved crawlers, OAI-SearchBot respects robots.txt. Blocking it removes your content from ChatGPT's search results; blocking GPTBot is the crawler documented by OpenAI that typically fetches content for training future models. It can be specifically allowed or blocked via robots.txt.Open glossary entry → only opts out of model training, and ChatGPT-User is the user agent documented by OpenAI for user-triggered retrieval. It fetches a page when a user enters a specific URL or query in ChatGPT.Open glossary entry → governs live fetches. The three decisions are independent — review them separately instead of blocking "everything OpenAI" in one rule.
Why it matters for AI visibility #
If AI assistants are becoming a discovery channel for your audience, OAI-SearchBot access is the technical prerequisite for being cited in ChatGPT answers. Check your robots.txt and firewall rules explicitly — an old blanket bot-blocking rule can silently exclude you from an entire channel.