GPTBot is OpenAI’s web crawler used to index content for use in ChatGPT and other OpenAI products. It is identifiable via its user-agent string in server logs. Content blocked from GPTBot via robots.txt will not be available for citation in ChatGPT responses.
GPTBot access is a prerequisite for ChatGPT citation. Brands that inadvertently block GPTBot — through overly restrictive robots.txt rules or JavaScript-heavy rendering that GPTBot cannot process — eliminate themselves from ChatGPT’s retrieval pool. Verifying GPTBot accessibility is a basic AI SEO audit step.
