How do I block ChatGPT-User in robots.txt?

To control ChatGPT-User access, add the following to your robots.txt file: User-agent: ChatGPT-User Allow: / # To block: # User-agent: ChatGPT-User # Disallow: /

Does ChatGPT-User respect robots.txt?

Yes, ChatGPT-User respects robots.txt directives.

What are ChatGPT-User's IP ranges?

Known ChatGPT-User IP ranges include: 20.15.240.64/28, 20.15.240.80/28, 20.15.240.96/28, 20.15.240.176/28

CHATGPT-USER

Q: What is the ChatGPT-User User-Agent string?

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

LOW RISK🤖 AI ASSISTANT BROWSER

ChatGPT's real-time web browsing mode that fetches pages during conversations

ORGANIZATION

OpenAI

FIRST SEEN

2023-09

RESPECTS ROBOTS.TXT

✓ YES

DOCUMENTATION

platform.openai.com

—

DAILY VISITS

—

COUNTRIES ACTIVE

TRACKING

STATUS

—

LAST SEEN

📡 CHATGPT-USER USER-AGENT STRING

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

This is the User-Agent header sent by ChatGPT-User in HTTP requests. Use this to identify ChatGPT-User in your server access logs.

📋 ABOUT CHATGPT-USER

ChatGPT-User is the User-Agent identifier used by OpenAI's ChatGPT when it browses the web in real-time during user conversations. Unlike GPTBot, which crawls the web systematically for training data, ChatGPT-User fetches individual pages on demand when a ChatGPT Plus, Team, or Enterprise user asks the model to look something up on the internet.

This bot's traffic pattern is fundamentally different from traditional crawlers. Rather than systematic site-wide crawling, ChatGPT-User makes individual, one-off page requests driven by user queries. The traffic volume is proportional to ChatGPT's user base and their browsing habits. Each request represents a real user interaction where someone has asked ChatGPT for current information.

NORAD.io tracks ChatGPT-User activity to help site operators distinguish between AI training crawling (GPTBot) and real-time AI assistant browsing (ChatGPT-User). Many sites choose to allow ChatGPT-User while blocking GPTBot, since the browsing mode drives referral traffic and user engagement while the crawler collects training data.

🎯 HOW TO DETECT CHATGPT-USER

▸User-Agent contains 'ChatGPT-User' — distinct from 'GPTBot'
▸Requests are sporadic and user-driven, not systematic crawling patterns
▸Typically fetches single pages, not entire site structures
▸Shares IP ranges with GPTBot but has different User-Agent
▸May fetch pages at any time of day based on user activity

🌐 CHATGPT-USER KNOWN IP RANGES

20.15.240.64/2820.15.240.80/2820.15.240.96/2820.15.240.176/28

Use these CIDR ranges to verify ChatGPT-User identity at the network level. Always combine with User-Agent verification for accurate detection.

🔄 CRAWL BEHAVIOR

On-demand fetching triggered by user conversations. Does not crawl systematically — only visits pages when a ChatGPT user explicitly requests web information. Single-page fetches with no follow-on crawling.

PURPOSE

Fetches web pages in real-time to provide ChatGPT users with up-to-date information during conversations. Data is used for immediate response generation, not for model training.

🤖 ROBOTS.TXT CONFIGURATION

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /

# To block:
# User-agent: ChatGPT-User
# Disallow: /

ChatGPT-User respects robots.txt directives. Add this to your robots.txt file at the root of your domain.

→ Complete Guide: robots.txt for AI Bots

🗺️ WHERE IS CHATGPT-USER ACTIVE?

⚠️ RELATED THREATS

Prompt Injection

Attempts to override bot instructions via malicious content embedded in web pages

Data Exfiltration

Bots attempting to extract sensitive data from websites including PII and credentials

Credential Stuffing

Automated login attempts using leaked credentials from data breaches

Aggressive Content Scraping

Bots aggressively scraping content beyond robots.txt limits and ToS

🔗 RELATED BOTS

GPTBotLOW

OpenAI · OpenAI's web crawler used for training GPT models and improving AI capabilities

OAI-SearchBotLOW

OpenAI · OpenAI's search grounding crawler — fetches pages for ChatGPT Search and SearchGPT results

📂 MORE 🤖 AI ASSISTANT BROWSERS

PerplexityBotPerplexity AI Anthropic-AIAnthropic Perplexity-UserPerplexity AI Claude-WebAnthropic

📚 RELATED GUIDES

How to Detect AI Bots →robots.txt for AI Bots →NORAD API Docs →

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