# ChatGPT-User

> Visits a page when a ChatGPT user or a custom GPT asks for it. It does not crawl automatically and does not decide eligibility for ChatGPT search.

Canonical page: https://getrankroot.com/ai-bots/chatgpt-user · Facts checked against OpenAI docs on 2026-10-20

| Operator | Used for | Type | Obeys robots.txt |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OpenAI | ChatGPT (user actions and GPT Actions) | User-triggered fetcher | Not reliably |

## Should you allow it?

Leave it allowed. A robots.txt rule for it has little effect anyway, and blocking it at the firewall breaks pages users share with ChatGPT.

**If you block it:** A robots.txt rule may not apply, OpenAI says. It has no effect on ChatGPT search eligibility.

OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply because these visits are user-initiated. To opt out of ChatGPT search, use OAI-SearchBot instead.

## robots.txt rules

Allow ChatGPT-User:

```
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /
```

Block ChatGPT-User:

```
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
```

Disallow ChatGPT-User from one folder only:

```
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /
```

A bot follows the most specific User-agent group that names it and ignores the generic `User-agent: *` group, so repeat any shared Disallow lines inside it.

This fetcher does not reliably follow robots.txt, so a Disallow rule may have little effect.

## Same company, different bots: OpenAI

| Bot | Type | Purpose | Obeys robots.txt | If you block it |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [OAI-SearchBot](https://getrankroot.com/ai-bots/oai-searchbot.md) | AI search index | ChatGPT search | Yes | Your pages stop appearing in ChatGPT search answers (they can still show up as navigational links). |
| [ChatGPT-User](https://getrankroot.com/ai-bots/chatgpt-user.md) | User-triggered fetcher | ChatGPT (user actions and GPT Actions) | Not reliably | A robots.txt rule may not apply, OpenAI says. It has no effect on ChatGPT search eligibility. |
| [GPTBot](https://getrankroot.com/ai-bots/gptbot.md) | AI training crawler | OpenAI model training | Yes | Signals OpenAI not to use your content to train its foundation models. No effect on ChatGPT search. |
| [OAI-AdsBot](https://getrankroot.com/ai-bots/oai-adsbot.md) | User-triggered fetcher | ChatGPT ads | Not documented | OpenAI's docs don't describe a robots.txt opt-out. It only visits pages submitted as ChatGPT ads, to review them. |

## User agent string

```
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot
```

## How to verify it's really ChatGPT-User

Find its requests in your server logs:

```
grep -i "ChatGPT-User" access.log
```

OpenAI publishes a separate IP list for each of its bots and recommends allowing requests from those ranges. It does not document a reverse DNS check.

Published IP list: https://openai.com/chatgpt-user.json

## Common mistakes

- Disallowing ChatGPT-User to leave ChatGPT search. OpenAI says it is not used to decide whether content appears in search; use OAI-SearchBot for that.
- Writing a User-agent: ChatGPT-User group and expecting your User-agent: * rules to still apply. A crawler follows only the most specific group that matches it and ignores the others, so repeat any shared Disallow lines inside the ChatGPT-User group.
- Leaving a CDN or host "block AI bots" setting on and only checking robots.txt. Those settings block requests at the network edge. Cloudflare, for example, changed its defaults on September 15, 2026 for customers who did not opt out: bots it classifies as Training or Agent are blocked on pages that display ads, and multi-purpose crawlers that combine Search and Training are affected by the Training block.
- Trusting the user agent header alone. Anyone can send "ChatGPT-User" in a request; verify the source IP as shown above before allowlisting or blocking.

## FAQ

### What is ChatGPT-User?

Visits a page when a ChatGPT user or a custom GPT asks for it. It does not crawl automatically and does not decide eligibility for ChatGPT search.

### Does ChatGPT-User respect robots.txt?

Not reliably. OpenAI says user-requested fetches may not follow robots.txt.

### What happens if I block ChatGPT-User?

A robots.txt rule may not apply, OpenAI says. It has no effect on ChatGPT search eligibility.

### Should I block ChatGPT-User?

Leave it allowed. A robots.txt rule for it has little effect anyway, and blocking it at the firewall breaks pages users share with ChatGPT.

### Is ChatGPT-User a crawler?

No. OpenAI says it is not used for crawling the web automatically. It visits a page when a ChatGPT user or a custom GPT asks a question that needs it, and for user interactions with external apps through GPT Actions.

### How do I verify ChatGPT-User traffic?

Check the source IP against OpenAI's published list at openai.com/chatgpt-user.json. The user agent header alone can be faked.

## Sources

- [Official documentation from OpenAI](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots)
- [Published IP addresses for ChatGPT-User](https://openai.com/chatgpt-user.json)

Check whether ChatGPT-User can reach a site: https://getrankroot.com/tools/ai-crawler-checker or `GET https://getrankroot.com/api/bots?url=example.com`. Full list: https://getrankroot.com/ai-bots.md