AI bots
OAI-AdsBot: what it is, its IP ranges, and how to block it
OAI-AdsBot is OpenAI's crawler for AI search and answers.
| Vendor | OpenAI |
|---|---|
| What it is for | AI search and answers |
| In its User-Agent | OAI-AdsBot |
| Its vendor's address list | https://openai.com/adsbot.json |
| IP ranges | 2 |
It reads a page for an AI's search or for a person who asked an assistant, and can bring visitors. Bot Protection lets it through by default; you can block it.
How to verify it
Any bot can write OAI-AdsBot in its User-Agent. A request is OAI-AdsBot only when its address is in OpenAI's published list below: check the address, not the name.
How to block it
With robots.txt, you ask it to stay out:
User-agent: OAI-AdsBot Disallow: /
robots.txt is a request, not a block, and it cannot tell the real crawler from a bot wearing its name. Bot Protection verifies OAI-AdsBot by its address on every request and answers it as you choose on the Set-up page, per kind or for OAI-AdsBot alone; a bot that only wears the name is judged like any other bot.
Its IP ranges
From OpenAI's own list, downloaded again every day.
IPv4
130.131.229.128/25 20.168.90.128/25