# OAI-SearchBot

> Builds the index ChatGPT search answers from. Content it collects is used for retrieval and citation, not for model training.

| field | value |
|---|---|
| operator | OpenAI |
| category | AI search crawlers |
| robots.txt token | `OAI-SearchBot` |
| user-agent contains | `OAI-SearchBot` |
| robots.txt | obeys robots.txt (documented) |
| verify by | published IP ranges |
| published IP ranges | https://openai.com/searchbot.json |
| prefixes mirrored | 39 IPv4 / 0 IPv6 |
| operator docs | https://platform.openai.com/docs/bots |
| last reviewed | 2026-09-14 |

## What blocking it costs you

High. Blocking this removes you from ChatGPT search results and from the source links ChatGPT shows. This is the single most expensive block on this list for anyone who wants to be cited by an assistant.

## Full user-agent string

```
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; OAI-SearchBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/searchbot
```

## Block it

```
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /
```

## Allow it

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

## Ask this page a question, with one GET

A question about this page, answered by a call you can make right now — no key, no account, no JSON-RPC, nothing to assemble. The query string is already filled in with this page's own subject.

- **How do I prove a request really is OAI-SearchBot?**  
  `curl -s 'https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/tools/verification-methods?crawler=oai-searchbot&s=client-dossiers'`  
  The verification method its operator actually publishes — published IP ranges, reverse DNS, or nothing at all — and the mirror of it on this host.
- **Is 104.210.140.128 really OAI-SearchBot?**  
  `curl -s 'https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/tools/verify-crawler?ip=104.210.140.128&ua=OAI-SearchBot&s=client-dossiers'`  
  That address checked against every prefix this host mirrors. 104.210.140.128 is the first address of 104.210.140.128/28, one of the ranges listed on this page — so the link is a worked example that returns a match. Swap in an address from your own log.

Every parameter above is a value the endpoint reads, not an address it visits: nothing is fetched on your behalf. Called without any parameter, each endpoint returns its own specification instead of an error.

JSON: https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/crawler/oai-searchbot.json · index: https://www.pathwren.workers.dev/llms.txt