INGDG

OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI)

AI search · Current version 1.4

What it is

OAI-SearchBot is the crawler OpenAI uses to surface websites in ChatGPT’s search features. OpenAI says sites that opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. It is independent of GPTBot, so you can stay in ChatGPT search while opting out of model training.

Official documentation: developers.openai.com · checked 13 Nov 2026

OAI-SearchBot user agent

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36; compatible; OAI-SearchBot/1.4; +https://openai.com/searchbot
When fetching robots.txt
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36; compatible; OAI-SearchBot/1.4; robots.txt; +https://openai.com/searchbot

Official documentation: developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots · checked 13 Nov 2026

Block or allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt

Put these lines at the top of the robots.txt file in your site’s root (example.com/robots.txt). Each subdomain needs its own file.

Block OAI-SearchBot from the whole site
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /
Block OpenAI’s training, stay in its search
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Closes GPTBot. OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User stay under your general rules, so your pages can still appear in answers and results.

Allow OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
# repeat here the Disallow lines of your User-agent: * group

If OAI-SearchBot is not named in robots.txt, it already follows your User-agent: * rules, so you don’t need anything. A group of its own replaces the * group for this bot entirely: if you add one, repeat your general Disallow lines in it.

  • OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours after a robots.txt update for its search systems to adjust.
  • If you allow both OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot, OpenAI may use one crawl for both purposes.

OAI-SearchBot IP ranges

openai.com/searchbot.json

Official list: 39 ranges · published by the owner 2 Jan 2026 · we checked it 13 Nov 2026

Check an IP from your logs

Show all 39
  • 4.227.36.0/25
  • 13.66.216.176/28
  • 20.14.99.96/28
  • 20.25.151.224/28
  • 20.42.10.176/28
  • 20.168.18.32/28
  • 20.169.6.224/28
  • 20.169.7.48/28
  • 20.169.77.0/25
  • 20.171.53.224/28
  • 20.171.123.64/28
  • 23.102.145.48/28
  • 40.67.175.0/25
  • 40.90.214.16/28
  • 51.8.102.0/24
  • 74.7.175.128/25
  • 74.7.228.0/25
  • 74.7.228.128/25
  • 74.7.229.0/25
  • 74.7.229.128/25
  • 74.7.230.0/25
  • 74.7.241.128/25
  • 74.7.242.128/25
  • 74.7.243.0/25
  • 74.7.244.0/25
  • 104.210.140.128/28
  • 135.234.64.0/24
  • 172.182.193.80/28
  • 172.182.193.224/28
  • 172.182.194.32/28
  • 172.182.194.144/28
  • 172.182.195.48/28
  • 172.182.209.208/28
  • 172.182.211.192/28
  • 172.182.213.192/28
  • 172.182.224.0/28
  • 172.203.190.80/28
  • 172.203.190.112/28
  • 172.203.190.128/28

Does it respect robots.txt and Crawl-delay?

robots.txt: yes, OAI-SearchBot follows it according to its owner.

“OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot robots.txt tags to enable webmasters to manage how their sites and content work with AI.” — OpenAI documentation

Crawl-delay: the owner’s documentation does not mention it for OAI-SearchBot, so don’t rely on it.

Should you block OAI-SearchBot?

Think twice. OAI-SearchBot is how OpenAI’s AI search finds your pages; block it and your site can drop out of its answers and links. If your concern is model training, block the training bot instead.

Check your site

See whether your robots.txt and firewall let OAI-SearchBot in — together with every other AI bot in this directory. Free, no sign-up.

Other OpenAI bots

Questions

What is the OAI-SearchBot user agent string?+

OpenAI documents it as: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36; compatible; OAI-SearchBot/1.4; +https://openai.com/searchbot

How do I block OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt?+

Add a group for it to robots.txt in your site’s root: “User-agent: OAI-SearchBot” followed by “Disallow: /”.

What IP addresses does OAI-SearchBot use?+

OpenAI publishes 39 ranges at https://openai.com/searchbot.json. Requests that call themselves OAI-SearchBot from other addresses are most likely fake.

Does OAI-SearchBot respect robots.txt?+

robots.txt: yes, OAI-SearchBot follows it according to its owner.

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