What is OAI-SearchBot?
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT search. If robots.txt blocks it, your pages won't appear in ChatGPT's search answers, though they can still show as plain navigational links.
OAI-SearchBot is separate from GPTBot, which collects data for training. You can allow one and block the other. OpenAI says robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours to show up in search results.
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
Updated
Guides that cover this
How to allow GPTBot (and ChatGPT search) in robots.txt
2 min readAdd a User-agent: GPTBot group with Allow: / to robots.txt, and make sure no broader rule blocks it. If you want to appear in ChatGPT's search answers, allow OAI-SearchBot too. It's a separate crawler, and it's the one that decides whether ChatGPT search can show your pages.
AI crawlers list: every bot name for robots.txt
3 min readTo be cited in AI answers, allow the search crawlers: OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), Claude-SearchBot (Claude), PerplexityBot (Perplexity) and Googlebot (AI Overviews and AI Mode). GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and CCBot are about model training, and blocking them doesn't remove you from AI search.