What is GPTBot?

What is GPTBot?

GPTBot is the crawler OpenAI uses to collect web content that may be used to train its generative AI foundation models. Disallowing GPTBot in robots.txt tells OpenAI your content should not be used for training.

GPTBot is one of three OpenAI user agents, and each one is controlled independently:

The key point for AI visibility: if you want to appear in ChatGPT search answers, OAI-SearchBot is the bot that matters. You can allow OAI-SearchBot while disallowing GPTBot if you don't want your content used for training.

User-agent strings

OpenAI's crawlers identify themselves with these tokens in the user-agent string:

GPTBot/1.4; +https://openai.com/gptbot
OAI-SearchBot/1.4; +https://openai.com/searchbot
ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot

OpenAI publishes the IP ranges for each one (openai.com/gptbot.json, openai.com/searchbot.json, and openai.com/chatgpt-user.json), so you can verify that a visit claiming to be GPTBot really comes from OpenAI.

Configuring robots.txt

Appear in ChatGPT search and allow training:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /

Appear in ChatGPT search, but opt out of training:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Allow only some sections for training:

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /internal/

OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours after you update robots.txt for its systems to adjust.

Verifying GPTBot visits in your server logs

grep -E "GPTBot|OAI-SearchBot|ChatGPT-User" /var/log/nginx/access.log

Check that the IP address of each visit falls within OpenAI's published ranges before trusting the user agent.

Common mistakes

1. Blocking GPTBot and expecting to disappear from ChatGPT search GPTBot only covers training. To control whether you appear in ChatGPT search answers, use OAI-SearchBot.

2. Blocking OAI-SearchBot by accident Some copied "block all AI bots" robots.txt templates include OAI-SearchBot. If you want ChatGPT search visibility, make sure it's allowed.

3. Assuming Googlebot rules cover OpenAI's bots Rules for Googlebot don't apply to GPTBot or OAI-SearchBot. A User-agent: * rule does apply to any crawler without its own section.

4. Blocking at the firewall or CDN Some security and bot-management settings block AI crawlers regardless of robots.txt. If you allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, check that your CDN or firewall isn't blocking it.

Should you allow GPTBot?

It's a choice about training, not about ChatGPT search visibility. Allowing GPTBot lets your content inform future OpenAI models; disallowing it opts you out. Either way, allow OAI-SearchBot if you want to be eligible to appear in ChatGPT search answers.

Use our free AI visibility checker to see which AI crawlers your robots.txt allows. To learn whether ChatGPT actually mentions your brand, see how to check if ChatGPT mentions your brand.

Source: OpenAI, "Overview of OpenAI Crawlers" (developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots), as of October 2026.