AI crawler list · OpenAI · User-triggered fetcher

OAI-AdsBot

Checks landing pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT for safety and may use their content to decide when to show the ad. It only visits submitted ad pages and OpenAI says its data is not used to train foundation models.

Facts checked against OpenAI docs on Oct 20, 2026.

Operator

OpenAI

Used for

ChatGPT ads

Type

User-triggered fetcher

Obeys robots.txt

Not documented

Is OAI-AdsBot allowed on your site?

Reads your robots.txt and requests your page as each AI bot. Free, no signup.

Should you allow it?

Only relevant if you run ChatGPT ads. Do not block your own ad landing pages.

If you block it: OpenAI's docs don't describe a robots.txt opt-out. It only visits pages submitted as ChatGPT ads, to review them.

robots.txt rules

Allow OAI-AdsBot

User-agent: OAI-AdsBot
Allow: /

Block OAI-AdsBot

User-agent: OAI-AdsBot
Disallow: /

Disallow OAI-AdsBot from one folder only

User-agent: OAI-AdsBot
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /

Put each User-agent group in the robots.txt at your domain root. A bot follows the most specific group that names it and ignores the generic User-agent: * group, so repeat any shared Disallow lines inside it. Build a full file with the AI robots.txt generator.

Same company, different bots: OpenAI

OpenAI uses separate user agents for separate jobs. Blocking one does not block the others.

Bot	Purpose	Obeys robots.txt	If you block it
`OAI-SearchBot` AI search index	ChatGPT search	Yes	Your pages stop appearing in ChatGPT search answers (they can still show up as navigational links).
`ChatGPT-User` 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` 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` 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.

Allow OpenAI search and user fetches, opt out of OpenAI training

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: OAI-AdsBot
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User agent string

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

Versions in the string can change. Match on the token OAI-AdsBot, and verify real traffic as shown below rather than trusting the header.

How to verify it's really OAI-AdsBot

Find its requests in your server logs (the path to your access log depends on your host):

grep -i "OAI-AdsBot" 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: openai.com/adsbot.json

Check one IP against the list (prints True or False):

curl -s https://openai.com/adsbot.json | python3 -c "import sys,re,ipaddress as a; ip=a.ip_address(sys.argv[1]); print(any(ip in a.ip_network(c,strict=False) for c in re.findall(r'[0-9a-fA-F:.]+/[0-9]+', sys.stdin.read())))" 203.0.113.7

Common mistakes

Blocking it with a firewall or bot-protection rule on pages you submitted as ChatGPT ads. It is the bot OpenAI uses to check those landing pages.
Writing a User-agent: OAI-AdsBot 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 OAI-AdsBot 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 "OAI-AdsBot" in a request; verify the source IP as shown above before allowlisting or blocking.

FAQ

What is OAI-AdsBot?

Does OAI-AdsBot respect robots.txt?

Not applicable.

What happens if I block OAI-AdsBot?

OpenAI's docs don't describe a robots.txt opt-out. It only visits pages submitted as ChatGPT ads, to review them.

Should I block OAI-AdsBot?

Only relevant if you run ChatGPT ads. Do not block your own ad landing pages.

Which pages does OAI-AdsBot visit?

OpenAI says it only visits pages that were submitted as ads on ChatGPT. It checks them for safety and may use their content to decide when the ad is most relevant.

Is OAI-AdsBot data used to train ChatGPT?

No. OpenAI says data collected by OAI-AdsBot is not used to train generative AI foundation models.

How do I verify OAI-AdsBot?

Its user agent contains OAI-AdsBot/1.0 and +https://openai.com/adsbot. Check the source IP against OpenAI's list at openai.com/adsbot.json.

Sources

Related AI crawlers

OAI-SearchBot · ChatGPT-User · GPTBot · Claude-User · Perplexity-User · Google-CloudVertexBot · meta-externalfetcher · Amzn-User

Facts checked against OpenAI docs on Oct 20, 2026. Spot an error? rankroot.support@proton.me