OpenAI's web crawler that indexes content for ChatGPT's search and shopping features.
OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's dedicated web crawler that discovers and indexes web content for use in ChatGPT's real-time search, shopping, and browsing features. When ChatGPT needs to provide up-to-date information or product data, OAI-SearchBot's index is what it references. This crawler is distinct from GPTBot (which collects training data) and specifically powers ChatGPT's live retrieval capabilities. Ensuring OAI-SearchBot can access your content is essential for appearing in ChatGPT's real-time search results and shopping features.
We ensure OAI-SearchBot has proper access to your key pages so ChatGPT's search and shopping features can reference your content in real-time.
If OAI-SearchBot cannot crawl your site, ChatGPT's search and shopping features will not include your content in real-time answers. This means missing out on ChatGPT's massive user base when they search for topics related to your business.
Allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt so ChatGPT can cite your content in browsing mode
Monitoring server logs for OAI-SearchBot activity to understand which pages ChatGPT indexes
Optimizing page structure so OAI-SearchBot can efficiently extract key information
OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot serve different purposes. GPTBot collects data for model training, while OAI-SearchBot powers real-time search. Blocking one does not block the other—configure each separately.
Ensure your robots.txt does not block OAI-SearchBot. The default is to allow crawling, so only sites that explicitly block it need to make changes.
GPTBot crawls content for OpenAI's model training data. OAI-SearchBot crawls for ChatGPT's real-time search and browsing features. They have different user agent strings and purposes.
Crawl frequency depends on your site's authority, content update frequency, and crawl budget allocation. High-authority sites with frequent updates get crawled more often.
Agentic commerce is the next wave of e-commerce — AI agents completing purchases autonomously on behalf of customers. This guide explains what it means, how Shopify is building for it, and how to prepare your store.
Use AI customer segmentation on Shopify to predict purchases, automate RFM analysis, prevent churn, and time your next-purchase campaigns perfectly.
Set up AI fraud detection on Shopify to prevent chargebacks and fraudulent orders. Compare Shopify Protect, fraud analysis tools, and custom risk rules.
Get a free audit to see how your brand appears across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and other AI platforms.