Which websites block OAI-SearchBot?
26 of 243 popular sites we measured block OAI-SearchBot (10.7%), checked 2026-10-01.
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI’s crawler for search product index (ChatGPT search). It fetches pages so an answer can cite them, so blocking it removes a site from those answers as a live source. More about OAI-SearchBot.
The robots.txt rule
To block it:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Disallow: /
To allow it explicitly:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Allow: /
A server or CDN can still refuse the crawler when robots.txt allows it. That is why the checker fetches as the crawler as well as reading the file.
Sites that block OAI-SearchBot
| Site | How |
|---|---|
| msn.com | robots.txt disallow |
| facebook.com | robots.txt disallow |
| fbcdn.net | robots.txt disallow |
| amazon.com | robots.txt disallow |
| instagram.com | robots.txt disallow |
| skybridge.click | robots.txt disallow |
| pubmatic.com | refused at the server |
| creativecdn.com | robots.txt disallow |
| twitter.com | robots.txt disallow |
| pinterest.com | robots.txt disallow |
| reddit.com | robots.txt disallow |
| sharethrough.com | robots.txt disallow |
| amazon.co.za | robots.txt disallow |
| netcraze.io | robots.txt disallow |
| juicyscore.com | robots.txt disallow |
| pinimg.com | robots.txt disallow |
| blismedia.com | refused at the server |
| t.co | robots.txt disallow |
| cornell.edu | refused at the server |
| x.com | robots.txt disallow |
| wp.com | refused at the server |
| claude.ai | robots.txt disallow |
| meraki.com | robots.txt disallow |
| ad-score.com | robots.txt disallow |
| storygize.net | robots.txt disallow |
| starttest.com | robots.txt disallow |
Check your own site
The free checker runs the same probe on any URL: robots.txt resolved for every AI crawler, then a live fetch as each one, so a CDN or firewall block shows up even when robots.txt looks fine.
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Other crawlers
- Sites that block GPTBot
- Sites that block ChatGPT-User
- Sites that block ClaudeBot
- Sites that block Claude-SearchBot
- Sites that block Claude-User
- Sites that block Google-Extended
- Sites that block PerplexityBot
- Sites that block Perplexity-User
- Sites that block CCBot
- Sites that block Bytespider
- Sites that block Applebot-Extended
- Sites that block Meta-ExternalAgent
- Sites that block Amazonbot
- Sites that block cohere-ai
- Sites that block Diffbot
- Sites that block Timpibot