OAI-SearchBot user agent: what it is and whether to allow it
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT search, used to surface websites in its search results. Its robots.txt token is OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI recommends allowing it. If you block it, your pages are excluded from ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. It is independent from GPTBot.
| Operator | OpenAI, for ChatGPT search |
|---|---|
| Purpose | AI search |
| robots.txt token | OAI-SearchBot |
| User agent | 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/searchbot |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, and says it can take about 24 hours for search systems to reflect a robots.txt change. |
| Runs JavaScript | No |
| IP ranges | Published list |
| Documentation | OpenAI |
What OAI-SearchBot does
OAI-SearchBot is the OpenAI crawler that surfaces websites in the search features of ChatGPT. It is separate from GPTBot, which is used for training.
Should you block OAI-SearchBot?
Allow OAI-SearchBot if you want to appear in ChatGPT search answers; it is separate from GPTBot. OpenAI documents that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot are excluded from ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /Rules that apply
- Rule 01: Allow OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot in robots.txt if you want AI citations
- Rule 02: Treat training bots and search bots as separate robots.txt decisions
- Rule 03: Audit your CDN and WAF bot settings; they can block AI crawlers that robots.txt allows
- Rule 04: Ship primary content in the initial HTML; most AI crawlers don't execute JavaScript
Questions
What is the OAI-SearchBot user agent string?
OpenAI's example is: 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/searchbot. OpenAI notes the version may change.
Should I allow OAI-SearchBot?
OpenAI recommends allowing it so your site can appear in ChatGPT search results. It is not used for training, which is the job of GPTBot.
Does blocking OAI-SearchBot remove me from ChatGPT?
It excludes your site from ChatGPT search answers. OpenAI says opted-out sites can still appear as navigational links. Changes can take about 24 hours to take effect.
Does OAI-SearchBot execute JavaScript?
Vercel's December 2024 study of AI crawler traffic found that OAI-SearchBot does not render JavaScript. OpenAI's documentation does not state this. Keep critical content in the initial HTML.
Sources
- Overview of OpenAI Crawlers · OpenAI
- The rise of the AI crawler · Vercel, Dec 17, 2024
Checked against the operators' documentation every Monday. Last reviewed Nov 2, 2026.