Can ChatGPT read your website?
Find what stops ChatGPT reading your site — and get the exact fixes, plus your full AI readiness report.
ChatGPT
Claude
Gemini
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Includes all AI platforms and all five readiness categories.
canairead.me
Can ChatGPT read your website? · Full AI readiness report included
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What we check
ChatGPT interacts with the web in three distinct ways: training crawls (GPTBot), live search citations (OAI-SearchBot), and on-demand browsing when a user pastes your link (ChatGPT-User). Each is controlled separately, and a site can be open to one while fully blocked from another.
- robots.txt rules for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User
- Whether your content is present without JavaScript rendering
- Structured data OpenAI's systems can use to identify your business
- Response time and availability during automated requests
Crawlers involved
GPTBot
OpenAI
Crawls public content that may be used to train future OpenAI models.
Explore the related checker →OAI-SearchBot
OpenAI
Powers live web results and citations shown inside ChatGPT search.
Explore the related checker →ChatGPT-User
OpenAI
Fetches a specific page when a user explicitly asks ChatGPT to browse it.
Explore the related checker →Common problems
OAI-SearchBot blocked, GPTBot allowed
Training access is open but live citation access is closed — the opposite of what most sites intend.
Cloudflare bot-fight mode
Aggressive bot protection can block legitimate AI crawlers alongside malicious traffic.
How to fix them
Explicitly allow OAI-SearchBot
If you want ChatGPT search citations, add a clear Allow rule rather than relying on default behaviour.
Review WAF/CDN bot rules
Check Cloudflare, Akamai or similar dashboards for AI-crawler-specific exceptions.
Frequently asked
What's the difference between GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot?
GPTBot crawls for model training. OAI-SearchBot powers live citations in ChatGPT's search feature. Blocking one has no effect on the other.
Can I let ChatGPT cite me but opt out of training?
Yes — disallow GPTBot while allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt. They're independent directives.