OpenAILive fetcher
ChatGPT-User
ChatGPT-User is a user-triggered OpenAI fetcher for ChatGPT and Custom GPT actions.
Reads a page when someone asks ChatGPT about it.
- GPTBotTrainingNot checked
- OAI-SearchBotSearchNot checked
- ChatGPT-UserUser fetchNot checked
Reads your live robots.txt and applies the same rules these crawlers use. Nothing is stored.
- robots.txt token
ChatGPT-User- Follows robots.txt
- Not always
- How to verify it
- Published IP ranges
- Seen on
- 56% of sites · #5
- Last checked
- 18 August 2026
Should you block ChatGPT-User?
Usually not. It reads a page only when a person asks ChatGPT about it, so blocking it hides your page from someone already looking for it.
| OpenAI bot | Job | If you block it |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | Training | Disallowing GPTBot expresses an opt-out for the potential training use covered by that crawler. ChatGPT search uses the separate OAI-SearchBot control. |
| OAI-SearchBot | Search | Disallowing OAI-SearchBot can reduce search discovery and citation eligibility. Allowing it does not guarantee indexing, ranking, or citation. |
| ChatGPT Agent | User fetch | A verified request represents task automation on a user’s behalf, not background search indexing or training crawling. |
| ChatGPT-UserThis page | User fetch | A matching request is consistent with a user-triggered fetch, not broad search indexing or training. It does not reveal the conversation or prove citation. |
| OAI-AdsBot | Other | Blocking it can prevent an ad landing page from being reviewed or matched to relevant ad opportunities. It does not affect organic ChatGPT search or model training. |
From OpenAI’s documentationOpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply to ChatGPT-User, because a person starts each request.
About robots.txtOpenAI documents this as user initiated, so robots.txt rules may not apply in every case.
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /Asks ChatGPT-User not to crawl any page. Other OpenAI bots are unaffected. Add it to the robots.txt file at the root of your site, above any wider rules.
ChatGPT-User fires when a real user's question pulls in your page. To know how often ChatGPT reaches for your brand at all, track your brand mentions in ChatGPT.
To see why ChatGPT-User access is worth checking rather than assuming, read live assistant fetches rising from fourteen a day to seventy-two on one real site.
Spot it in your logs.
Match the name, then check where the request came from. Anyone can copy a user-agent. Search your own logs for ChatGPT-User.
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/botVersion numbers change. Match the highlighted name, not the whole string.
- 1
Match the name
Search your server or CDN log for
ChatGPT-User, case-insensitive. A match is a clue, not proof. - 2
Check the published IP ranges
Compare the request’s source with the list OpenAI publishes. Anything outside it is not OpenAI. openai.com/chatgpt-user.json
Is this really ChatGPT-User?
Published addressesPaste an address that claims to be ChatGPT-User. It is checked against OpenAI’s published list. Nothing is stored.
Serve the content in HTML
The cited operator material does not verify JavaScript rendering. Serve useful HTML before client-side JavaScript where possible.
How active is ChatGPT-User?
Measured across the sites connected to Trakkr, 27 July 2026 to 25 October 2026.
of connected sites saw ChatGPT-User in the four weeks to 25 October 2026. That is 58 of 104.
Share of connected sites it visited each week
- Rank by reach
- 5 of 26
- Typical site, per week
- 156 requests
- Sites reached, 13 weeks
- 75 of 135
Most widespread AI crawlers
Share of connected sites each one visited, last four weeks.
- 1
OAI-SearchBot84%
- 2
ClaudeBot84%
- 3
GPTBot67%
- 4
Amazonbot61%
- 5
ChatGPT-User56%
- 6
PerplexityBot56%
- 7
Applebot51%
- 8
Bytespider48%
How this is measured
Finalized daily crawler summaries from sites connected to Trakkr, grouped by the crawler named in each request. Trakkr’s own site is excluded. A site counts as reached in a week when it logged at least one request from ChatGPT-User. The typical figure is the median weekly requests among the sites it reached.
- This is a sample of connected sites, not the whole web.
- A matching user-agent does not prove the named operator sent the request.
- Requests are not unique pages, training use or citations.
- Crawlers seen on fewer than 10 sites are not shown. Classic search crawlers such as Googlebot are not collected on every site, so they are left out.
Questions, answered.
ChatGPT-User is a user-triggered OpenAI fetcher for ChatGPT and Custom GPT actions.
Sources.
Officially documented. Operator facts and Trakkr’s measurements keep separate dates.
- [1]OpenAI crawler documentation
Officially documented · checked 18 August 2026
developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
First verified 18 August 2026. Last source check 18 August 2026. Activity measured to 25 October 2026.
See which AI crawlers read your site.
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