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Glossary entry openai-searchbot

OAI-SearchBot

The OpenAI crawler that powers ChatGPT's web search retrieval, different from GPTBot (training).

Filed under
Engines & bots

Definition

OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's RETRIEVAL crawler, the one that fetches pages when ChatGPT's web-search tool is invoked. It's distinct from GPTBot which crawls for TRAINING. Blocking OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt kills your ChatGPT citation eligibility; blocking GPTBot only blocks training (a separate decision).

Example

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot\nAllow: / (explicit allow ensures ChatGPT can cite you)

How to optimize

Add 'User-agent: OAI-SearchBot' with 'Allow: /' to robots.txt. Confirm via VectorCite's AI-bot access signal. Choose separately whether to allow GPTBot (training).

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