How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews

To get your business recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, let their crawlers reach your site, say plainly what you do and where you do it, and keep your Business Profile and review-site listings accurate. Nobody can guarantee a citation, and cited sources can change from one month to the next.

By Donnie Strompf. Updated October 2026.

Key takeaways

• ChatGPT and Google both show sources taken from the web, so the work starts with a site and listings they can reach and read.
• OpenAI says allowing its OAI-SearchBot crawler makes a site eligible for ChatGPT search, and Google says AI Overviews need no requirement beyond being indexed and snippet-eligible.
• For local businesses, BrightLocal’s August 26, 2026 study found Google Business Profile in about 28.6% of local AI citations, and Yelp was the most common local source for ChatGPT.
• eMarketer reported on April 2, 2026 that cited sources in Google AI Mode and ChatGPT change from month to month, so a citation has to be kept up.
• OpenAI says placement is not guaranteed, and Google says indexing and serving are not guaranteed. No agency can promise a citation, including ours.

Who is writing this and what it covers

I’m Donnie Strompf, and I lead SEO and AI-visibility work at Good At Marketing, an agency in Boynton Beach, Florida that I started in July 2017. The question I hear is how a business gets recommended when someone asks ChatGPT or Google for a company in its area.

This guide answers it with what the engines say in their own documentation, plus 2026 studies from Ahrefs and BrightLocal and a 2026 report from eMarketer. The table lists the pages I read and the dates they show.

I use the term AEO (answer engine optimization) throughout. eMarketer reported on April 2, 2026 that AEO and GEO describe the same underlying approach in practice, so I treat the two as one job.

What each engine draws on

I checked the published documentation for the four engines below. The last column names the page I read for each row and the date it shows.

Engine	What it draws on	What you can control	Where I verified it
ChatGPT search	Rewrites your question into one or more targeted queries and sends them to search providers. Ranks results on multiple factors. Responses may include citations. Placement is not guaranteed.	Whether OAI-SearchBot can crawl your site, and whether your host or CDN allows OpenAI’s published searchbot IP addresses. Sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.	OpenAI Help Center, “ChatGPT search” (shows no date; read October 14, 2026) for the citation and placement statements, and OpenAI crawler documentation (shows no date; read October 14, 2026) for the OAI-SearchBot opt-out consequence.
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode	Pages in Google Search. May issue multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources, then link to supporting pages.	Whether the page is indexed and eligible to show with a snippet. Googlebot robots.txt rules and snippet controls such as nosnippet and noindex.	Google Search Central, “AI features and your website” (last updated December 10, 2025).
Gemini app	May provide links to sources and related content, including public websites. Some responses are grounded on Google Search results.	The Gemini pages I read give site owners no separate control. The Google Search controls above are the ones documented.	Gemini Apps Help, “View related sources & double-check responses” (shows no date; read October 14, 2026) and Gemini Apps Privacy Hub (last updated October 13, 2026).
Perplexity	Searches the web as you ask and cites its sources. PerplexityBot is designed to surface and link websites in Perplexity search results.	Whether PerplexityBot is allowed in your robots.txt. Perplexity says changes can take up to 24 hours.	Perplexity Help Center, “How does Perplexity work?” and Perplexity bots documentation (neither shows a date; read October 14, 2026).

The crawler requirements differ between OpenAI and Google. OpenAI says ChatGPT may search the web automatically when a question would benefit from current information, and a person can also start a search by hand. Responses that use web search may include citations.

Google’s page says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no other special optimizations are necessary. It also says you don’t need new machine readable files, AI text files or markup, and no special schema.org structured data is required. That is why none of the steps below involve a new file or schema type.

Why a week of work is worth it

AI answers are changing what happens to a page that ranks well. In its February 4, 2026 article, Ahrefs reported that an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page (Ahrefs, December 2023 compared with December 2025, 300,000 keywords). Ahrefs describes this as a correlation.

The other number to hold alongside it is small. Ahrefs reported in an article published May 15, 2026 that all AI chatbots combined sent 3.5 million visitors in March 2026, which was 0.28% of total web traffic in Ahrefs’ sample of 74,752 websites. Ahrefs adds that some AI-referred visits are recorded as direct traffic, so the true share may differ.

The 58% figure measures click-through rates on search results. The 0.28% figure measures chatbot referral traffic. The studies suggest AI Overviews are associated with fewer clicks on top-ranking pages, while chatbot referrals remain a small share of traffic in Ahrefs’ sample. If you rely on search for customers, keep your SEO strong and add work on AI answers next to it.

Make sure the engines can reach your site

Start by checking robots.txt and your hosting rules. OpenAI documents separate crawlers for different jobs.

OAI-SearchBot is the search crawler. GPTBot collects content that may be used to train its models. ChatGPT-User fetches pages when a person asks it to.

For ChatGPT search, OAI-SearchBot is the one that matters. OpenAI’s documentation says sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they may still appear as navigational links. The Help Center adds that a host or CDN must allow traffic from OpenAI’s published searchbot IP addresses, so ask whoever manages your hosting.

OpenAI also says ChatGPT-User is not used to decide whether content may appear in Search. Blocking GPTBot is a separate choice about training, and I leave it to each owner. Perplexity makes a similar split: PerplexityBot surfaces and links sites in its search results, and Perplexity-User handles requests a person starts.

For Google, the control is Googlebot’s robots.txt rules. A page has to be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet to be a supporting link, and Google states that indexing and serving are not guaranteed. If you change snippet controls, Google says recrawling can take anywhere from several days to several months.

Where AI engines look for local businesses

If you serve customers in a city or county, the question changes from “what does the engine read on my site” to “what does it read about me elsewhere.” The best evidence I have found is the BrightLocal study of local AI sources, published August 26, 2026. It covers 1,967,762 citations from Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and from ChatGPT, for business locations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

BrightLocal found that Google Business Profile is about 28.6% of all citations (28.63% in the study’s table). The pattern differs by engine.

In AI Mode, Google Business Profile had 455,123 citations and Yelp 76,124. In ChatGPT, Yelp led with 99,281 citations, followed by Tripadvisor with 10,227 and OpenTable with 9,147. BrightLocal wrote that Yelp is the most common source for ChatGPT in local search by some distance.

Two limits apply. The study did not cover Gemini or Perplexity, and it is one vendor’s dataset. Based on BrightLocal’s findings, check your Google Business Profile, your Yelp listing and the review or directory sites that matter in your category. Our Google Business Profile management page explains how we handle the first of those.

Steps a business owner can do in one week

Each step below fits in a day or less. Only step 2 needs someone else, whoever manages your hosting.

1. Day 1, test the engines. Ask each engine in the table ten questions a customer would ask, such as “best [your service] in [your city].” Write down which businesses are named and which sources are linked. This is your baseline, and it shows which sites the engines trust in your category.
2. Day 2, check access. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and read it. Confirm it does not disallow OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or Googlebot. Ask your host or CDN provider to confirm OpenAI’s published searchbot IP addresses are allowed, as OpenAI’s Help Center instructs. Check that your key pages are not set to noindex.
3. Day 3, write plain answers on your main pages. State what you do, where you do it, who it is for, and what it costs or how pricing works. Add a short FAQ with the questions customers ask you. ChatGPT rewrites a question into targeted queries and Google may search across subtopics, so a page that answers the subtopics directly gives them something to quote.
4. Day 4, complete your Google Business Profile. Check that your categories and hours are current, add recent photos and reply to recent reviews. BrightLocal found the profile was the largest single source in Google’s AI answers.
5. Day 5, fix the listings the engines cite. Claim and complete your Yelp listing, and any category site in the BrightLocal list that fits your business, such as Tripadvisor or OpenTable for restaurants and travel. Keep your name, address, phone number and hours identical everywhere.
6. Day 6, ask recent customers for reviews. Ask people who have used your business and have not yet written one. Make the request simple, with a direct link.
7. Day 7, save your baseline and set a monthly check. Repeat the day 1 questions each month and compare. Because cited sources change from month to month, a one-time check tells you little.

What you cannot buy or guarantee

OpenAI’s Help Center says placement is not guaranteed, and Google says indexing and serving are not guaranteed. I don’t know of any fee that buys a position inside an organic AI answer, and I would not trust a vendor who claims to sell one.

You cannot control which providers ChatGPT queries, how it ranks results, or how Google’s systems decide when an AI Overview appears. Google says AI Overviews appear only when its systems judge them additive to classic Search, so they often do not appear.

You also cannot make a result last. eMarketer’s April 2, 2026 report says 40 to 60% of cited sources in Google AI Mode and ChatGPT change month to month, so treat a citation as something you keep earning. I recommend repeating the same questions monthly and recording which sources appear.

What we do about it and what it costs

We sell AEO as one service, alongside SEO services, because the groundwork is shared: a crawlable site, pages that answer questions, and accurate profiles. Our AEO services cost $950 to $2,000 a month alongside SEO. Every service price sits on our pricing page. For the full breakdown, see our guide to how much AEO costs. Our verdict prompting playbook gives buyers a prompt to run once they find you, and our post on whether AI makes mistakes in digital marketing covers where AI tools go wrong.

If the seven steps above are all your business needs, do them and skip the retainer. They cost your time, with no monthly fee.

FAQ

Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

No fee I know of buys a place in ChatGPT’s answers. Treat a vendor who sells guaranteed citations as a warning sign, and ask what they will do and how they will report it. Spend money on work you can inspect, such as site fixes, page rewrites and listing cleanup.

Do I need to change my robots.txt for ChatGPT?

Read it once. A line that disallows OAI-SearchBot keeps your site out of ChatGPT search answers, and your host or CDN settings matter too, because OpenAI asks site owners to allow its published searchbot IP addresses. GPTBot is separate and concerns model training, so allowing or blocking it is your own call.

Do I need schema or an llms.txt file for AI Overviews?

Google’s documentation lists neither. A page needs to be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and Google says no extra markup, text files or structured data are required on top of that. Time is better spent making the page answer the question clearly than adding files.

How long until ChatGPT or Google starts recommending my business?

I can’t name a timeline, and anyone who does is guessing. Engines choose different sources from one month to the next, and you don’t control that choice. Run the same test questions every month, correct what they reveal, and judge the direction over several months.

What is the difference between AEO and SEO?

SEO works to rank your pages in search results. AEO works to get your business named in AI answers, and it relies on the same crawlable, well-organized pages. GEO is another label for the same job, which is why we offer a single AEO service alongside SEO.

Related reading

• What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?
• How AI search engines choose their sources, compared
• Which AI crawlers to allow in robots.txt, and whether llms.txt does anything

Next step

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