Enables AI to cite your content in conversations.
Recommended action: Allow access and monitor which pages get cited.
Category
AI Assistant
Primary use case
AI-powered conversations
Trust level
Generally safe
Trust Levels
- Trusted
- Generally safe
- Review recommended
- Caution advised
Trust levels are an indication based on category, operator, and robots.txt compliance. Always review bot activity for your specific situation.
Learn how we assess trustrobots.txt
Respected
ChatGPT-User Traffic (Last 90 Days)
What is ChatGPT-User?
ChatGPT-User is dispatched by OpenAI when a ChatGPT user asks a question that requires fetching live web content. It retrieves the page so ChatGPT can include it as a cited source in its response.
What ChatGPT-User means for your site
ChatGPT-User fetches your pages in real-time when someone asks OpenAI a question your content can answer. Your content may be quoted, summarized, or linked in the AI's response. This is a new form of visibility: your pages help answer real questions, but the traffic often stays within the AI platform. Pages with clear structure, direct answers, and strong branding are more likely to be cited and clicked.
What should you do?
- Allow ChatGPT-User access to your content
- Ensure important pages have clear, structured answers near the top
- Add branded CTAs so users recognize your site when cited
- Monitor which pages get cited most in BotSights
- Compare citation volume with click-through to identify optimization opportunities
See ChatGPT-User on your own site
BotSights tracks every ChatGPT-User visit in real time, including which pages it crawls, how often, and from where.
How to identify ChatGPT-User
ChatGPT-User identifies itself with the user-agent pattern "chatgpt-user". It respects robots.txt. Each visit corresponds to a real user query, not systematic crawling.
chatgpt-userChatGPT-UserHow to block ChatGPT-User
Three robots.txt options below. Pick the one that matches your goal. Each snippet lists every known ChatGPT-User user-agent pattern so the rules apply regardless of which one the bot announces.
Edit robots.txt with care
A single misplaced line can de-index your entire site. Common mistake: pasting User-agent: * followed by Disallow: / blocks every bot, not just ChatGPT-User, including Googlebot. Always paste the snippet between existing rules (not over them), keep the User-agent line scoped to ChatGPT-User's patterns, and verify with Google's robots.txt tester before deploying. If you are not sure, ask a developer first.
Option 1: Block all access
Tells ChatGPT-User not to crawl any URL on your site. Use this when you want the bot completely off your content.
User-agent: chatgpt-user
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /Option 2: Block specific paths only
Keep public content crawlable but exclude sensitive or non-public sections. Add one Disallow: line per path. Replace the example paths with your own.
User-agent: chatgpt-user
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /checkout/Option 3: Slow down with a crawl delay
Crawl-delay is a voluntary directive that asks the bot to wait the given number of seconds between requests. Useful when ChatGPT-User is hammering your origin and slowing the site down for real visitors, but you do not want to block it outright. The value is in seconds, so 10 means at most one request every ten seconds. Not all bots honour this directive (Googlebot ignores it; Bingbot, Yandex, and many AI crawlers do respect it).
User-agent: chatgpt-user
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Crawl-delay: 10Frequently Asked Questions
What is the User-Agent for ChatGPT-User?
ChatGPT-User identifies itself with the User-Agent string "chatgpt-user" (alternate forms: ChatGPT-User). You can use this in robots.txt rules or server-side filters.
Should I block ChatGPT-User?
Blocking ChatGPT-User prevents this AI from citing your content in real-time user answers. Unless you have a specific reason to restrict access, allowing it increases your AI visibility and potential referral traffic.
Is ChatGPT-User the same as a training crawler?
No. Training crawlers (like GPTBot or ClaudeBot) download content to improve AI models. ChatGPT-User fetches pages in real-time to answer specific user questions and cites sources back. Blocking a training crawler does not block ChatGPT-User.
Does ChatGPT-User send traffic to my site?
Sometimes. When ChatGPT-User cites your content, the AI response often includes a link. Whether users click depends on how prominently your content is presented and how your title and meta description are written. BotSights tracks both citations and click-through rates.
Does ChatGPT-User respect llms.txt?
llms.txt is an emerging standard for guiding AI assistants. OpenAI have not yet committed to honoring it formally. ChatGPT-User does respect robots.txt, which is the established control mechanism today.
How can I verify that a request is really ChatGPT-User?
Check the request's User-Agent against "chatgpt-user", then verify the source IP. OpenAI publishes IP ranges at openai.com/chatgpt-user.json. BotSights does this automatically and shows a verified badge per visit.
Can I see exactly which pages ChatGPT-User cites?
Yes. BotSights tracks every visit from ChatGPT-User per page, plus the click-through rate from real users who follow citations back to your site. This is page-level visibility you cannot get from server logs alone.
See which pages AI assistants access and cite
Track AI assistant visits, monitor page-level citation activity, and find which content drives the most AI visibility.
- AI citation tracking per page
- See which AI platforms use your content
- Find high-opportunity pages for AI visibility
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