What is OAI-SearchBot?
Definition
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for surfacing websites in ChatGPT's search features. It does not collect content for model training; that is GPTBot's job. Sites that disallow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt are not shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. OpenAI recommends allowing it.
Also known as: OpenAI SearchBot, ChatGPT search crawler, OAI SearchBot
Its job: sourcing ChatGPT search
When ChatGPT answers a question with current web sources, the pages it can show and link to come from OAI-SearchBot's crawling. That makes this bot the prerequisite for visibility in ChatGPT's flavor of AI search. OpenAI's documentation is explicit: sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. OpenAI therefore recommends allowing the bot in robots.txt.
How it relates to OpenAI's other bots
The bots are independent, and you can decide on each one separately:
| Configuration | Outcome |
|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot allowed, GPTBot allowed | Eligible for ChatGPT search; content may also be collected for training. |
| OAI-SearchBot allowed, GPTBot disallowed | Eligible for ChatGPT search; a training opt-out is signaled. |
| OAI-SearchBot disallowed | Not shown in ChatGPT search answers; may still appear as a navigational link. |
User-initiated actions are handled by ChatGPT-User, and OpenAI notes that robots.txt rules may not apply to them because a user started the request. For the training crawler, see GPTBot.
Allowing it in robots.txt
If your site has no general restrictions, no specific rule is needed; the bot may crawl everything by default. An explicit group is still a simple way to document intent and keep the bot unaffected by other rules:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /account/If you have a broad Disallow under User-agent: *, remember that a named group means OAI-SearchBot follows only its own group, so repeat any paths you still want protected. OpenAI says robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours to take effect.
Spotting it in logs
The user-agent string OpenAI documents:
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/searchbotSince it starts with a browser signature, filter on OAI-SearchBot. For IP verification, OpenAI publishes https://openai.com/searchbot.json.
Access is necessary, not sufficient
Letting the bot in does not mean your page will be quoted in an answer; it only makes that possible. Which pages get selected depends on ChatGPT's own search and ranking systems, which OpenAI does not publish in detail. Clear content that answers questions directly and reads as a trustworthy source is a sound general approach to earning an AI citation.