robots.txt Guide + Checker

OAI-AdsBot & robots.txt

OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads Landing-Page Checker

OAI-AdsBot checks pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT. It is not a training crawler and it is not the ChatGPT search crawler. Here's exactly what it does, verified against OpenAI's own documentation.

Last verified against OpenAI's crawler documentation: 2026-08-19

OAI-AdsBot: the facts

Every fact below is taken from OpenAI's bot documentation and the published IP list, last verified 2026-08-19.

Operator

OpenAI

robots.txt token

OAI-AdsBot

Full user-agent string

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

Purpose

Validates the safety and policy compliance of landing pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT

Pages it visits

Only pages submitted as ChatGPT ads — it does not crawl the open web

Used for model training?

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

Affects ChatGPT search visibility?

No. That is OAI-SearchBot's role

Honours robots.txt?

Not stated in OpenAI's crawler reference. Treat robots.txt rules as advisory

Published IP list

https://openai.com/adsbot.json

What is OAI-AdsBot?

OAI-AdsBot is the OpenAI bot behind ads on ChatGPT. OpenAI's documentation says: “OAI-AdsBot is used to validate the safety of web pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT.” When an advertiser submits an ad, OpenAI may visit the landing page to check it complies with OpenAI's ad policies. OpenAI may also use the landing-page content to determine when the ad is most relevant to show to users.

The scope is narrow by design. OpenAI states that OAI-AdsBot only visits pages submitted as ads. It does not crawl the open web the way GPTBot or OAI-SearchBot do. If nobody has submitted one of your pages as a ChatGPT ad, you should not see OAI-AdsBot in your logs at all.

What OAI-AdsBot is NOT

✗Not a training crawler. OpenAI states the data it collects “is not used to train generative AI foundation models.” Training collection is GPTBot's job.
✗Not the ChatGPT search crawler. Whether ChatGPT can find and cite your pages is gated by OAI-SearchBot. OAI-AdsBot plays no part in search visibility.
✗Not an open-web crawler. It only fetches pages that were submitted as ChatGPT ads.

robots.txt Syntax for OAI-AdsBot

Copy-paste these examples into your robots.txt file.

Honest caveat: OpenAI's crawler reference does not state that OAI-AdsBot honours robots.txt, so treat these rules as advisory rather than enforced.

Allow OAI-AdsBot (if you run ChatGPT ads)

# Allow ChatGPT ad landing-page checks

User-agent: OAI-AdsBot

Allow: /

Your ad landing pages can be validated against OpenAI's ad policies.

Block OAI-AdsBot

# Signal no ad-page checks

User-agent: OAI-AdsBot

Disallow: /

Advisory only. If you run ChatGPT ads, blocking it may interfere with ad review. It has no effect on ChatGPT search visibility either way.

How to verify a genuine OAI-AdsBot request

Any script can put “OAI-AdsBot” in its user-agent header. OpenAI publishes the IP addresses OAI-AdsBot actually crawls from, so verification is an IP check:

Fetch OpenAI's published list: https://openai.com/adsbot.json
Check the requesting IP against the ipv4Prefix ranges in that file.
A request claiming to be OAI-AdsBot from outside those ranges is spoofed.

# Ranges published in adsbot.json as of 2026-08-19

130.131.229.128/25

20.168.90.128/25

The list can change — always check the live JSON rather than hard-coding these ranges. The file's own creation timestamp is 2026-05-12.

OAI-AdsBot vs GPTBot vs OAI-SearchBot vs ChatGPT-User

OpenAI now operates four documented bots, each with its own token and its own job. GPTBot collects training data. OAI-SearchBot builds ChatGPT's search index — it is the only one that decides whether ChatGPT can cite your pages. ChatGPT-User fetches a page when a user asks for it. OAI-AdsBot checks ad landing pages.

Full guides: GPTBot & robots.txt and OAI-SearchBot & robots.txt.

	`OAI-AdsBot`	`GPTBot`	`OAI-SearchBot`	`ChatGPT-User`
Purpose	Validates landing pages submitted as ChatGPT ads.	Crawls content that may train OpenAI's models.	Indexes pages for ChatGPT search.	Fetches a page when a user asks ChatGPT to open it.
Visits which pages	Only pages submitted as ads.	The open web.	The open web.	Only the URL the user asked for.
Used for training	No — OpenAI states its data is not used to train foundation models.	Yes — that is its purpose.	No — search index only.	No — live browsing only.
Affects ChatGPT visibility	No.	No (training only).	Yes — this is the visibility gate.	No.
Respects robots.txt	Not stated in the crawler reference — advisory.	Yes.	Yes.	May not apply — fetches are user-initiated.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is OAI-AdsBot?

OAI-AdsBot is an OpenAI bot that checks landing pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT. OpenAI's bot documentation states: "OAI-AdsBot is used to validate the safety of web pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT." It visits a page when that page is submitted as an ad, to check policy compliance, and OpenAI may also use the landing-page content to decide when the ad is most relevant to show.

Is OAI-AdsBot used to train OpenAI's models?

No. OpenAI states: "the data collected by OAI-AdsBot is not used to train generative AI foundation models." Training collection is GPTBot's job, and GPTBot is controlled separately in robots.txt.

Does OAI-AdsBot affect whether my site appears in ChatGPT?

No. ChatGPT search visibility is gated by OAI-SearchBot, not OAI-AdsBot. OAI-AdsBot only visits pages that have been submitted as ChatGPT ads. If you never run ChatGPT ads, blocking or allowing OAI-AdsBot changes nothing about your visibility in ChatGPT answers.

Does OAI-AdsBot respect robots.txt?

OpenAI's crawler reference does not say. It names robots.txt as the control for OAI-SearchBot and GPTBot, but the OAI-AdsBot entry makes no robots.txt statement either way. OpenAI's advertiser help centre separately tells advertisers to allow OAI-AdsBot in robots.txt so their ad landing pages can be validated, which implies the bot reads it. Until OpenAI states compliance in the crawler reference, treat a rule as advisory. The practical control is simpler anyway: it only visits pages someone submitted as a ChatGPT ad.

Should I block OAI-AdsBot?

If you (or an agency acting for you) run ads on ChatGPT, allow it — it validates your ad landing pages, and blocking it risks interfering with ad review. If you don't run ChatGPT ads, OAI-AdsBot has no reason to visit your site, and a rule for it in robots.txt is mostly documentation.

What is the OAI-AdsBot user-agent string?

OpenAI's published user-agent string is: 'Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; OAI-AdsBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/adsbot'. Match on the token 'OAI-AdsBot' — version numbers can change. In robots.txt, reference it as 'OAI-AdsBot'.

How do I verify a request is really from OAI-AdsBot?

OpenAI publishes the IP addresses OAI-AdsBot crawls from at https://openai.com/adsbot.json. Check the requesting IP against that list. A request claiming to be OAI-AdsBot from an IP outside the published ranges is spoofed.

Related robots.txt Guides

GPTBot & robots.txt — OpenAI training crawler
OAI-SearchBot & robots.txt — the ChatGPT search visibility gate
ClaudeBot & robots.txt — Anthropic / Claude
Complete AI Crawlers Guide — All 18 bots explained

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