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GPTBot crawl spikes often trace to robots.txt not being served

calendar_today First seen: 2026-01-06
update Last updated: 2026-01-06
GPTBot crawl spikes often trace to robots.txt not being served

Overview

Reports of GPTBot making thousands of requests commonly stem from misconfigurations where robots.txt isn’t actually served to crawlers. Ensure robots.txt is reachable and returns the intended directives to the GPTBot user-agent; if issues persist, contact gptbot@openai.com. Also verify CDN/host settings and caching so bots receive the same robots.txt as browsers.

Story Timeline

GPTBot crawl spikes often trace to robots.txt not being served

Reports of GPTBot making thousands of requests commonly stem from misconfigurations where robots.txt isn’t actually served to crawlers. Ensure robots.txt is reachable and returns the intended directives to the GPTBot user-agent; if issues persist, contact gptbot@openai.com. Also verify CDN/host settings and caching so bots receive the same robots.txt as browsers.

article 2026-01-06 2026-01-06 08:13