OpenAITraining crawler
GPTBot
GPTBot is an OpenAI crawler for content that may be used to improve generative AI foundation models.
Training only. It does not decide whether you appear in answers.
- 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
GPTBot- Follows robots.txt
- Yes, documented
- How to verify it
- Published IP ranges
- Seen on
- 67% of sites · #3
- Last checked
- 18 August 2026
Should you block GPTBot?
Only if you want your pages kept out of training. ChatGPT finds and cites pages through OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT Agent and ChatGPT-User, which a GPTBot rule does not touch.
| OpenAI bot | Job | If you block it |
|---|---|---|
| GPTBotThis page | 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-User | 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 handles search opt-outs with OAI-SearchBot, separately from GPTBot, so a GPTBot block is a training choice.
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /Asks GPTBot 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.
Allowing GPTBot creates the possibility of retrieval. To find out whether ChatGPT actually cites or recommends you, track your ChatGPT mentions over time.
To see why GPTBot access is worth checking rather than assuming, read what happened when one site fixed a page its crawlers could not read.
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 GPTBot.
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; GPTBot/1.4; +https://openai.com/gptbotVersion numbers change. Match the highlighted name, not the whole string.
- 1
Match the name
Search your server or CDN log for
GPTBot, 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/gptbot.json
Is this really GPTBot?
Published addressesPaste an address that claims to be GPTBot. 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 GPTBot?
Measured across the sites connected to Trakkr, 27 July 2026 to 25 October 2026.
of connected sites saw GPTBot in the four weeks to 25 October 2026. That is 70 of 104.
Share of connected sites it visited each week
- Rank by reach
- 3 of 26
- Typical site, per week
- 352 requests
- Sites reached, 13 weeks
- 107 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 GPTBot. 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.
GPTBot is an OpenAI crawler for content that may be used to improve generative AI foundation models.
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.
Trakkr shows which bots, GPTBot included, visit which pages each day, and whether the answers they feed mention you.
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