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robots.txt keeps OAI-SearchBot out of your home page and most of the site

OAI-SearchBot may read only the paths robots.txt allows for it. Your home page and the rest of the site stay closed to it, so it cannot cite them.

robots_partial_oai_searchbot · AI crawler access · Error

What triggers it

robots.txt does not let OAI-SearchBot fetch your home page, but leaves some other paths open for it; the finding names the first three.

What to change

Remove the Disallow: / rule for OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, or add Allow rules for the other paths you want read.

Example

Lines that allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

How common it is

We have not measured how common this is on a sample of sites. Counts appear here when a study covers it.

About this check

Check IDrobots_partial_oai_searchbot
Report sectionAI crawler access
SeverityError
How it is decidedMeasured: read directly from the page or the server's response.
AddedBefore 19 Oct 2026 (versions 1 and 2), or a site-wide check with no version date yet
StatusMeasured in every report
Report gives the codeYes, one block for the site

Settings by platform

For robots.txt, where the setting lives differs by platform. Our guides cover 13 of them: AI crawler settings by platform.

Related checks

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