What is OAI-SearchBot?

What does OAI-SearchBot do with your content?

Builds the index behind ChatGPT search — this is the bot that decides if ChatGPT can cite you. Like most AI crawlers, OAI-SearchBot reads your pages as plain HTML — it does not run JavaScript — so content that only appears after scripts execute is invisible to it.

Should you block OAI-SearchBot?

Blocking OAI-SearchBot makes your business invisible to OpenAI's AI when customers ask it for recommendations. If you want to be found, allow it; block it only if you have a specific reason to keep OpenAI's AI away from your content.

How do you allow or block OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt?

Add one of these snippets to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. The first explicitly allows OAI-SearchBot everywhere; the second blocks it completely.

# Allow OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

# Block OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /

Is robots.txt enough?

Not always. CDNs and firewalls (Cloudflare in particular) can block crawlers at the network level regardless of what robots.txt says — Cloudflare blocks AI crawlers by default for many accounts. If you want OAI-SearchBot to reach your site, check your CDN's bot settings too. SeeGeo's free audit checks both.

How do I check whether OAI-SearchBot can read my site right now?

Two checks, both needed: read your robots.txt for a group naming OAI-SearchBot (or the * group it falls back to), then request your homepage with OAI-SearchBot's user agent and confirm you get a 200 with your real HTML rather than a 403 or a challenge page. SeeGeo's free crawler check runs both in a few seconds.

Run the free AI crawler check

How does OAI-SearchBot compare to similar crawlers?

OAI-SearchBot is one of 16 crawlers the SeeGeo audit checks individually. The closest comparisons:

All 16 crawlers, compared · What is an AI crawler?

Why does crawler access matter? The numbers

Crawler access is where AI visibility starts or ends: a blocked crawler can't read you, and an AI that can't read you can't recommend you.

• Visitors arriving from AI assistants convert at roughly 4.4x the rate of traditional organic search on average (Semrush, cross-industry, 2026).
• AI-assistant referrals are still only about 1% of total web traffic — small, but the fastest-growing acquisition channel measured (multiple 2026 studies).
• Adobe Digital Insights (Q1 2026) measured AI-assistant visitors converting 42% better than non-AI traffic — a full reversal from the year before.
• Cloudflare blocks AI crawlers by default for many accounts, so sites are often invisible to AI without anyone having decided to be.
• Content edits alone — statistics, citations, quotable structure — can raise AI visibility on the order of 30–40% (Princeton GEO study, KDD 2024).

What is OAI-SearchBot?

OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's AI search index crawler. Builds the index behind ChatGPT search — this is the bot that decides if ChatGPT can cite you.

Should I block OAI-SearchBot?

Blocking OAI-SearchBot makes your business invisible to OpenAI's AI when customers ask it for recommendations. If you want to be found, allow it; block it only if you have a specific reason to keep OpenAI's AI away from your content..

Does OAI-SearchBot run JavaScript?

No. OAI-SearchBot, like most AI crawlers, reads raw HTML without executing JavaScript. If your content only renders client-side, it is effectively invisible to it.

Can OAI-SearchBot read my website?

Only if two things are true: your robots.txt does not disallow OAI-SearchBot, and your server or CDN actually serves the page when OAI-SearchBot asks. Firewalls can block it regardless of robots.txt, so the reliable way to know is to fetch your homepage as OAI-SearchBot — the free check on see-geo.com/ai-crawler-check does exactly that.