01 · Operator
Who operates OAI-SearchBot
- Company
- OpenAI
- Type
- AI search crawler
- Official docs
- developers.openai.com
02 · Behavior
What OAI-SearchBot does
OAI-SearchBot crawls pages automatically to build the index behind ChatGPT search answers. It is separate from GPTBot, which crawls for model training. Sites that opt out are not shown in ChatGPT search answers; OpenAI says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to apply.
03 · Impact
Why OAI-SearchBot matters for your site
If you allow it
- Your pages can appear and be linked in ChatGPT search answers
- Potential referral traffic from ChatGPT
- Controlled separately from GPTBot training crawls
If you block it
- Removes your site from ChatGPT search answers
- Reduces crawl load if you do not want AI search exposure
04 · Allow
How to allow OAI-SearchBot
robots.txt
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "OAI-SearchBot")
Action: Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules
# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.WordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "OAI\-SearchBot") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} OAI\-SearchBot [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block OAI-SearchBot
OAI-SearchBot follows robots.txt, so one rule is enough. Use a server or CDN rule only to stop spoofed copies.
robots.txt
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "OAI-SearchBot")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "OAI\-SearchBot") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} OAI\-SearchBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for OAI-SearchBot
The user agent published by the operator:
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/searchbot07 · Verification
Is it really OAI-SearchBot?
Anyone can copy a user agent. Real OAI-SearchBot requests come from the IP ranges published at openai.com/searchbot.json.
FAQ
Questions about OAI-SearchBot
What is the difference between OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot?
OAI-SearchBot crawls for ChatGPT search results, while GPTBot collects data for model training. You can allow one and block the other in robots.txt.
Will blocking OAI-SearchBot remove my site from ChatGPT?
OpenAI states that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. They can still appear as navigational links.
How long does a robots.txt change for OAI-SearchBot take?
OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours from a robots.txt update for its systems to adjust.
Last reviewed Oct 6, 2026