What Is GPTBot? Should You Block It?

If you’ve checked your server logs lately, you may have noticed a new crawler: GPTBot. 

Maybe you’ve heard SEO folks talk about it on X (Twitter), or perhaps your dev team asked if they should “block this new bot thing.”

Well, GPTBot is OpenAI’s official web crawler, designed to scan public web pages and feed information to train AI models, such as ChatGPT. It’s sort of Googlebot, but instead of building a search index, it helps LLMs “learn” from online content.

In this blog post, I’ll break down what exactly GPTBot is, what it does, why it matters for businesses, and most importantly, whether you should block it. Also, I’ll share how Writesonic’s Generative Engine Optimization Tool can give you an edge in this new AI search era.

What is GPTBot?

GPTBot is OpenAI’s official web crawler, purpose-built to collect publicly available information from the internet. 

In simple terms, the main job of GPTBot is to scour the public web, read pages, and help improve large language models (LLMs) by providing fresh training data. It’s like a “digital content collector.” 

Whenever GPTBot visits your site, it reads your public pages such as blog posts, FAQs, product descriptions, help articles, and more. The information it collects becomes part of the vast pool of data that OpenAI’s models use to generate smarter, more accurate, and up-to-date responses for users.

In short: If you have a website, there’s a good chance GPTBot has already paid you a visit or may be visiting right now.

Why Does GPTBot Crawl Websites?

Let’s get specific. GPTBot’s goals are to:

1. Gather high-quality, public content: From news articles and blogs to product pages, FAQs, and more.
2. Feed LLMs with fresh data: So generative AI models stay up-to-date, relevant, and “smarter.”
3. Improve AI outputs: The better the data, the more accurate and nuanced the responses.

Example:

When a user asks ChatGPT, “What are the best protein powders in 2025?”, the knowledge comes from what bots like GPTBot and other crawlers have gathered.

How Does GPTBot Work?

GPTBot might sound mysterious, but its process is surprisingly straightforward. Here’s how it operates, step by step:

1. Identifies Itself

Whenever GPTBot visits a website, it does so with a clear user agent string. In your server logs, it appears as something like:

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; GPTBot/1.1; +https://openai.com/gptbot

This transparency makes it easy for webmasters to recognize and monitor GPTBot’s activity.

2. Follows Your Rules

Before crawling your site, GPTBot checks your robots.txt file – the standard way to tell bots which parts of your site they can or cannot access. 

If you block GPTBot in robots.txt, it will respect your preference and refrain from accessing your site.

3. Crawls Public Pages Only

GPTBot only scans publicly accessible content. It does not attempt to bypass paywalls, logins, or restricted sections. 

Anything behind authentication or marked as private stays untouched.

4. Collects Content for AI Training

Unlike Googlebot, which collects content for indexing in search results, GPTBot’s sole purpose is to gather data for training large language models like ChatGPT. 

The information it gathers is used to improve the AI’s understanding of language, context, and current events.

5. No Direct Impact on Rankings

It’s important to note: GPTBot’s activity doesn’t influence your SEO rankings or how your site appears in search engines. Its only job is to help OpenAI’s models learn from the public web.

Some things to note:

• It doesn’t crawl everything (private, paywalled, or robots.txt blocked pages are off-limits).
• OpenAI claims to avoid sensitive data and prioritize privacy.

Where you’ll see GPTBot show up:

• Blog posts
• News articles
• Product reviews
• Help docs
  …Basically, anywhere content is open and valuable.

GPTBot acts much like a friendly researcher, respecting your boundaries, only accessing what’s allowed, and quietly helping AI get smarter by learning from the best the web has to offer. If you want to control its access, it’s as simple as updating your robots.txt file.

How Can You Tell If GPTBot Is Visiting Your Site?

You can find GPTBot in your logs; look for a user agent string like this:

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; GPTBot/1.1; +https://openai.com/gptbot (Source)

Pro Tip:

Run a quick search through your server logs for “GPTBot.”
Or use analytics tools (like Cloudflare or Screaming Frog) to monitor unusual bot activity.

Does GPTBot Help or Hurt Website Owners?

This is the million-dollar question. 

As per Cloudflare, GPTBot is the second-most blocked AI bot and also has the second-most website crawls. Bytespider tops both rankings. And around 3.5% of websites are still blocking GPTBots via robot.txt files.

But both blocking and allowing have their own pros and cons. Here’s how it plays out:

Potential Benefits:

• Brand Reach: Your content may become the “source” for AI answers used by millions daily.
• Authority & Backlinks: Some AI tools cite their sources, bringing traffic and credibility.
• Early Mover Advantage: If your site is visible to GPTBot, your expertise may shape future AI responses, especially in niche topics.

Potential Risks:

• Loss of Control: Your content could be used to train AI models without attribution (not all models cite sources).
• Content Scraping: If you rely heavily on exclusive content, GPTBot might “learn” from it anyway (if it’s not blocked).
• Bandwidth Drain: For high-traffic sites, excessive crawling by bots can use server resources.

Should You Block GPTBot?

The short answer: It depends on your goals and content.

Allow GPTBot if:

• You want your brand, products, or expertise featured in AI-generated answers across tools like ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews.
• Your content is meant for public education, awareness, or thought leadership.
• You see AI search as a new channel to reach wider audiences.

Block GPTBot if:

• You offer exclusive, paid, or sensitive content you don’t want used to train AI models.
• You’re in a regulated industry or have strict privacy requirements.
• You prefer full control over how your content is used beyond your website.

Blocking GPTBot won’t affect your Google rankings or SEO. Many brands now take a hybrid approach, allowing access to public pages but blocking it for private or premium content.

How to Block GPTBot From Crawling Your Website?

Blocking GPTBot is straightforward and only takes a minute. All you need to do is update your site’s robots.txt file, which is the standard way to tell web crawlers which parts of your site they can or cannot access.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Access your robots.txt file:

This file is usually found at the root of your website (e.g., yourdomain.com/robots.txt).

2. Add the following lines:

User-agent: GPTBot

Disallow: /

This tells GPTBot to avoid crawling any part of your site.

3. Save and upload the updated robots.txt file

The change is effective immediately. GPTBot will check this file before attempting to crawl your pages.

Tip: Want to block GPTBot from only certain sections? Just specify the folders:

User-agent: GPTBot

Disallow: /premium-content/

Disallow: /members-only/

These are the variables, and will block the particular path.

4. How can you confirm it’s working?

You can monitor your server logs or use analytics tools to check that GPTBot stops appearing after you make this change. That’s it – fast, easy, and totally reversible if you change your mind.

Heads-up: Some AI crawlers ignore robots.txt, but OpenAI’s GPTBot claims to respect it.

Note:

OpenAI operates three bots for different use cases:

• GPTBot (used for training large language models)
• ChatGPT-User (for browsing mode)
• ChatGPT-Plugins (for plugin browsing)

If you want to block all OpenAI-related crawling, add these lines to your robots.txt:

OAI-SearchBot: OAI-SearchBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/searchbot

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

GPTBot: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; GPTBot/1.1; +https://openai.com/gptbot

Optimize Your Brand’s AI Presence with Writesonic GEO

Blocking or allowing GPTBot is only one piece of the puzzle. To really understand and grow your brand’s reach in the AI-driven era, you need visibility and actionable insights.

Writesonic’s Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) helps you do exactly that.

With GEO, you can:

• Track how and where your brand appears across leading AI search engines and AI overviews
• Benchmark your visibility against competitors to spot new opportunities
• Optimize your content for maximum impact in AI-generated answers and summaries

GEO gives you the data and recommendations you need to turn AI visibility into a real strategic advantage, so you’re not just hoping AI finds your content; you’re actively shaping how your brand shows up in this new search ecosystem.

Make Smart Choices for Your Brand in the Age of AI

The rise of GPTBot marks a turning point in how content is discovered, used, and surfaced online. Whether you choose to block or allow GPTBot depends on your business goals, content strategy, and comfort level with AI-driven visibility.

The key is to be intentional:

• If you want your public content powering the next wave of AI-generated answers and summaries, letting GPTBot crawl your site can boost your reach and authority.
• If you need to protect exclusive, private, or sensitive information, blocking GPTBot is simple and won’t hurt your traditional SEO.

As AI search engines become mainstream, brands that pay attention to how their content is being used and actively optimize for this new reality will stand out. 

Tools like Writesonic’s Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) make it possible to track, benchmark, and enhance your brand’s presence across the AI era, so you’re always a step ahead.

To know more about how GEO can help, get in touch with our team!

Pragati Gupta

Content Marketer

Pragati Gupta is a Content Marketer @Writesonic, specializing in AI, SEO, and strategic B2B writing. Leveraging the power of Generative AI, she produces high-impact content that drives superior ROI.