What Is the Difference Between GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot?

GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot are both OpenAI crawlers, but they serve different purposes. GPTBot gathers web content used to train future versions of OpenAI's models, a slow, ongoing process disconnected from any single search query.

OAI-SearchBot instead fetches pages in real time to answer a live ChatGPT search request, closer to how Googlebot works for regular search results.

Site owners can allow or block each one separately through robots.txt. Blocking GPTBot keeps content out of future model training. Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps content out of live ChatGPT citations right now.

Getting that distinction right matters before running AI SEO tool on any site.

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