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AI crawler · retrieval · OpenAI

What is OAI-SearchBot?

The crawler OpenAI uses to build the index behind ChatGPT search — the one that can surface and cite your pages in an answer.

How this helps you show up

This is the bot you want reachable. If it can fetch your page, ChatGPT search has something real to quote. Clear titles, honest summaries, and stable URLs help it pick you over a competitor.

If it cannot reach your page

ChatGPT search cannot cite what it cannot read. Sites often block this by accident while trying to block training bots, then wonder why they never appear in answers.

The facts

robots.txt token
OAI-SearchBot
Owner
OpenAI
Product it serves
ChatGPT search
Category
retrieval — indexed so an answer can cite it
Training opt-out
Retrieval / user fetch — usually keep open for citations
User agent as sent
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; OAI-SearchBot/1.3; +https://openai.com/searchbot

robots.txt is a request, not a lock. Our checker fetches your page as OAI-SearchBot and reports what actually came back — status code, challenge page, or real HTML.

Check your site in a minute

The AI crawler checker tests OAI-SearchBot plus the other answer-engine bots on one URL. No account. Want robots.txt logic only? Use the robots.txt tester.

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