Definition
OAI-SearchBot is the OpenAI agent that crawls for search indexing, as distinct from GPTBot, which collects content that may be used for model training, and ChatGPT-User, which fetches a page in response to a person's request.
Why it matters
This is the single most common self-inflicted GEO wound: a site decides it does not want its content used for training, blocks OpenAI broadly, and removes itself from ChatGPT search results at the same time. Blocking GPTBot alone does not remove you from those results.
How to measure it
Name each agent explicitly in robots.txt rather than using a wildcard on the operator, then verify by fetching with each user agent. Record the decision and its reason next to the rule — these are policy choices, and the person who reads the file in a year will not remember which one was intentional.