OpenAI

Common mistakes with OpenAI's crawlers

The errors we see most often with OpenAI's crawlers in the files and firewalls we test:

1. Assuming a robots.txt rule will stop OpenAI's crawlers. User-triggered fetches act for a person, and some operators say robots.txt may not apply to them. Check the operator's statement above.
2. Blocking OpenAI's crawlers as if it were a bulk crawler. It fetches one page because a person asked; blocking it means that person's assistant cannot read your page.
3. Counting OpenAI's crawlers visits as crawl volume. Each request maps to a real user question, which makes the paths it requests a useful signal of what people ask about you.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check OpenAI's crawlers from outside after every change.

Spotting OpenAI in your logs

robots.txt says what ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) and ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) and ChatGPT-User/2.0 and GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot and OpenAI Ads Validator may do; your access logs show what they actually did.

Count requests

On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):

grep -iE "ChatGPT Agent|ChatGPT Operator|ChatGPT-User|GPTBot|OAI-SearchBot|OAI-AdsBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "ChatGPT Agent|ChatGPT Operator|ChatGPT-User|GPTBot|OAI-SearchBot|OAI-AdsBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send these user-agents, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

• ChatGPT Agent: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where OpenAI documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) request with caution. Check it separately from ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) and ChatGPT-User/2.0 and GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot and OpenAI Ads Validator.
• ChatGPT Operator: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where OpenAI documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) request with caution. Check it separately from ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) and ChatGPT-User/2.0 and GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot and OpenAI Ads Validator.
• ChatGPT-User: compare each address with the ranges at openai.com/chatgpt-user.json. A request claiming to be ChatGPT-User/2.0 from outside them is not genuine. Check it separately from ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) and ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) and GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot and OpenAI Ads Validator.
• GPTBot: compare each address with the ranges at openai.com/gptbot.json. A request claiming to be GPTBot from outside them is not genuine. Check it separately from ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) and ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) and ChatGPT-User/2.0 and OAI-SearchBot and OpenAI Ads Validator.
• OAI-SearchBot: compare each address with the ranges at openai.com/searchbot.json. A request claiming to be OAI-SearchBot from outside them is not genuine. Check it separately from ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) and ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) and ChatGPT-User/2.0 and GPTBot and OpenAI Ads Validator.
• OAI-AdsBot: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where OpenAI documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable OpenAI Ads Validator request with caution. Check it separately from ChatGPT Agent (Cloud browser) and ChatGPT Operator (Cloudflare name) and ChatGPT-User/2.0 and GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot.

What our own data shows about OpenAI

Everything below comes from the AI Crawler Check bot database and our two most recent robots.txt scans of the Tranco top 10,000, not from OpenAI's marketing. It covers 6 OpenAI tokens in turn.

ChatGPT Agent in our records

We first recorded ChatGPT Agent on June 18, 2026. OpenAI documents it on help.openai.com, and we recheck that page before each release. No file in our top-10,000 scans names ChatGPT Agent, so any rule you write for it puts you ahead of almost every large site.

Among the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database, ChatGPT Agent sits first by priority (Tier 1), level with ChatGPT Operator, ChatGPT-User, ChatGPT-User/2.0, Claude-SearchBot. 81 of the 104 share its safe rating. Other operators with a crawler that fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it: Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic, Tier 1), Claude-User (Anthropic, Tier 1), GrokAgent (xAI, Tier 1), muse- (Meta, Tier 1), AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval (Allen Institute for AI, Tier 2). A policy for ChatGPT Agent is usually a policy for these too.

A decision record for ChatGPT Agent

Teams that review crawlers once a quarter keep one short entry per token, so anyone can see why a rule exists and when it was last checked. Filled in from our data, the ChatGPT Agent entry reads:

• Operator and job: OpenAI; it fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it.
• Priority and behaviour: Tier 1, rated safe, blocking impact low.
• Suggested starting point: Allow, and watch it in your logs.
• Enforcement: ChatGPT Agent's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the ChatGPT Agent rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.

User-agent: ChatGPT Agent
Allow: /

Paste the line into the validator with one of your own URLs before it goes live. Revisit the ChatGPT Agent entry whenever OpenAI announces a change, because a Tier 1 crawler affects visibility directly.

ChatGPT Operator in our records

We first recorded ChatGPT Operator on March 17, 2026. OpenAI documents it on help.openai.com, and we recheck that page before each release. No file in our top-10,000 scans names ChatGPT Operator, so any rule you write for it puts you ahead of almost every large site.

Among the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database, ChatGPT Operator sits second by priority (Tier 1), level with ChatGPT Agent, ChatGPT-User, ChatGPT-User/2.0, Claude-SearchBot. 81 of the 104 share its safe rating. Other operators with a crawler that fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it: Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic, Tier 1), Claude-User (Anthropic, Tier 1), GrokAgent (xAI, Tier 1), muse- (Meta, Tier 1), AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval (Allen Institute for AI, Tier 2). A policy for ChatGPT Operator is usually a policy for these too.

ChatGPT-User in our records

We first recorded ChatGPT-User on March 17, 2026. OpenAI documents it on developers.openai.com, and we recheck that page before each release. Between our scans of October 17, 2026 and October 20, 2026, files naming ChatGPT-User went from 629 to 661 (+32) and files blocking it from 502 to 530 (+28), so more sites wrote a rule for ChatGPT-User and more of those rules block it.

Among the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database, ChatGPT-User sits third by priority (Tier 1), level with ChatGPT Agent, ChatGPT Operator, ChatGPT-User/2.0, Claude-SearchBot. 81 of the 104 share its safe rating. Other operators with a crawler that fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it: Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic, Tier 1), Claude-User (Anthropic, Tier 1), GrokAgent (xAI, Tier 1), muse- (Meta, Tier 1), AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval (Allen Institute for AI, Tier 2). A policy for ChatGPT-User is usually a policy for these too.

GPTBot in our records

We first recorded GPTBot on March 17, 2026. OpenAI documents it on developers.openai.com, and we recheck that page before each release. Between our scans of October 17, 2026 and October 20, 2026, files naming GPTBot went from 941 to 1,008 (+67) and files blocking it from 789 to 859 (+70), so more sites wrote a rule for GPTBot and more of those rules block it.

Among the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database, GPTBot sits ninth by priority (Tier 1), level with ChatGPT Agent, ChatGPT Operator, ChatGPT-User, ChatGPT-User/2.0. 81 of the 104 share its safe rating. Other operators with a crawler that collects pages to train AI models: ClaudeBot (Anthropic, Tier 1), Google-Extended (Google, Tier 1), Meta-ExternalAgent (Meta, Tier 1), AI2Bot (Allen Institute for AI, Tier 2), aiHitBot (aiHit, Tier 2). A policy for GPTBot is usually a policy for these too.

OAI-SearchBot in our records

We first recorded OAI-SearchBot on March 17, 2026. OpenAI documents it on developers.openai.com, and we recheck that page before each release. Between our scans of October 17, 2026 and October 20, 2026, files naming OAI-SearchBot went from 549 to 574 (+25) and files blocking it from 416 to 434 (+18), so more sites wrote a rule for OAI-SearchBot and more of those rules block it.

Among the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database, OAI-SearchBot sits 13th by priority (Tier 1), level with ChatGPT Agent, ChatGPT Operator, ChatGPT-User, ChatGPT-User/2.0. 81 of the 104 share its safe rating. Other operators with a crawler that fetches a page when a person asks an assistant or app to open it: Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic, Tier 1), Claude-User (Anthropic, Tier 1), GrokAgent (xAI, Tier 1), muse- (Meta, Tier 1), AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval (Allen Institute for AI, Tier 2). A policy for OAI-SearchBot is usually a policy for these too.

OAI-AdsBot in our records

We first recorded OAI-AdsBot on May 31, 2026. OpenAI documents it on developers.openai.com, and we recheck that page before each release. No file in our top-10,000 scans names OAI-AdsBot, so any rule you write for it puts you ahead of almost every large site.

Among the 104 AI and LLM crawlers in our database, OAI-AdsBot sits 72th by priority (Tier 2), level with AddSearchBot, AI2Bot, AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval, aiHitBot. 81 of the 104 share its safe rating. Other operators with a crawler that checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service: AdIdxBot (Microsoft, Tier 3), AdsBot-Google (Google, Tier 3), AdsBot-Google-Mobile (Google, Tier 3), Baiduspider-ads (Baidu, Tier 3), Baiduspider-cpro (Baidu, Tier 3). A policy for OAI-AdsBot is usually a policy for these too.

How top sites treat OpenAI's crawlers

From our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 (5,583 valid files, fetched October 20, 2026):

• GPTBot, the most blocked of the OpenAI's crawlers tokens: blocked in 15.4% of files (663 with its own group, 196 through User-agent: *), more often by the top 1,000 (20.4%) than the long tail (14.5%).
• ChatGPT-User, second of the OpenAI's crawlers tokens: blocked in 9.5% of files (330 with its own group, 200 through User-agent: *), more often by the top 1,000 (13.4%) than the long tail (8.4%).
• OAI-SearchBot, third of the OpenAI's crawlers tokens: blocked in 7.8% of files (234 with its own group, 200 through User-agent: *), more often by the top 1,000 (12.2%) than the long tail (6.6%).

For scale, 20.1% of all files block at least one AI training crawler. GPTBot is one of the tokens driving that figure.

More questions about OpenAI

Will blocking OpenAI affect my Google rankings?

Only if one of its tokens is a Google search crawler. None of OpenAI's tokens are Googlebot, so classic Google rankings are unaffected.

How quickly does a robots.txt change take effect for OpenAI?

Crawlers cache robots.txt, commonly for up to a day. Expect a change to apply within about 24 hours, and confirm it in your logs.

Can I allow OpenAI on some sections and block it on others?

Yes. Inside the group for ChatGPT Agent, add Disallow lines for the paths to keep private and Allow lines for exceptions. The longest matching rule wins.

Does blocking OpenAI delete content it already collected?

No. robots.txt only controls future visits. For content already collected, check whether OpenAI offers a removal or opt-out process.

Is a firewall block better than robots.txt for OpenAI?

A firewall enforces the decision, while robots.txt asks politely. Many operators recommend robots.txt because blocking their IPs can stop them reading your rules at all. Use robots.txt first, and add a firewall rule only if requests continue.