A few years ago, "being found online" meant one thing: page one of Google. Now your next customer might never see a results page at all. They ask ChatGPT for "a good accountant for a small online shop," they ask Claude to compare three booking systems, they ask Perplexity which dentist near them does same-day crowns, and Google answers a growing share of searches with an AI Overview before anyone scrolls. The question business owners are suddenly asking is: how do I get recommended by ChatGPT and friends? The good news is that the answer is less mysterious, and less expensive, than the people selling "AI SEO secrets" would like you to believe.
First, how AI assistants actually find you
Each assistant does something slightly different, but they share one habit: when a question needs current, real-world information, they go and read the web, then quote what they found.
- ChatGPT uses a dedicated crawler called OAI-SearchBot that is, in OpenAI's words, "used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features." OpenAI is blunt about the flip side: sites that block it "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers." A second visitor, ChatGPT-User, shows up when a real person asks ChatGPT to open a page, and a third, GPTBot, collects material for training. You can allow or block each one separately, and only the first one decides whether you appear in answers.
- Claude can "search the web to deliver up-to-date, cited information" and "provides direct citations so you can easily fact check sources." Web search is available on all Claude plans worldwide, so the shopkeeper asking Claude a question gets linked sources, and those links can be yours.
- Perplexity is built around citations. Its crawler, PerplexityBot, exists to "surface and link websites in search results on Perplexity" and is explicitly "not used to crawl content for AI foundation models." Every answer shows where it came from, which makes it the most transparent of the group and, honestly, a very good place to see whether your business is visible at all.
- Gemini and Google's AI Overviews lean on the regular Google index. Google's own documentation says there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary," and "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add." If you are crawlable and useful, you are eligible. Google also says that when people click through from pages with AI Overviews, "these clicks are higher quality," meaning visitors tend to stay longer.
- Microsoft Copilot sits on top of Bing, so the same logic applies: be indexed, be clear, be worth quoting.
Notice what is missing from that list: a secret file, a magic plugin, a special "AI tag." None of the platforms ask for one. What they all do is read your pages the way a very fast, very literal researcher would. Your job is to make that researcher's life easy.
Step 1: stop blocking the robots that recommend you
This one takes five minutes and is skipped by an astonishing number of businesses. Open yourbusiness.com/robots.txt in a browser. If you see lines disallowing OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, you have told those assistants to leave you out of their answers. A simple file that allows everything except your admin folder is the safe default for most small sites.
If you want to be in the answers but are uneasy about your content being used to train models, you can do both: allow OAI-SearchBot, block GPTBot. OpenAI states that "disallowing GPTBot indicates a site's content should not be used in training," and it does not affect your visibility in ChatGPT search. That is a business decision, not a technical one; just make it on purpose.
A small tip if you are not technical: paste your robots.txt into ChatGPT or Claude and ask, "Which AI search crawlers does this block?" If you or someone on your team uses Claude Code, it can read the file straight from your site and suggest the exact edit. Using the assistants to check whether the assistants can see you is the kind of loop we approve of.
Step 2: answer questions the way a person asks them
AI assistants are question-answering machines, so pages that clearly answer a question get quoted. Pages that start with four paragraphs about your passion for excellence do not.
Walk through the questions a customer asks before buying from you and give each one an honest, specific answer on your site:
- What exactly do you do, for whom, and what do you not do?
- How much does it cost, or at least what does the price depend on?
- How long does it take?
- What happens in the first call, visit or order?
- What makes you different, in concrete terms a stranger can verify?
Put the short answer first, then the detail. Headings that read like real questions ("How long does a kitchen renovation take?") help both humans skimming on a phone and assistants looking for a clean quote. This is the same craft as good old search engine optimization; if you want the slower, deeper version of this advice, our piece on how long SEO takes explains why the fundamentals still pay the bills.
Step 3: be the same business everywhere
Assistants cross-check. If your website says you open at 8, your Google Business Profile says 9 and a directory from 2019 says you closed, an assistant has three stories and no reason to trust any of them. Consistency is a trust signal that costs nothing but attention.
- Same business name, address, phone and opening hours on your site, your Google Business Profile, your social profiles and the major directories for your industry.
- A real "About" page with real names, real photos and a real location. Assistants, like people, are wary of businesses that could be anyone.
- Reviews that are recent and answered. Review text is exactly the kind of "what is it actually like" material assistants pull into recommendations.
For local businesses this overlaps almost entirely with classic local search work, and our local SEO checklist walks through it step by step.
Step 4: write things worth quoting
An assistant recommending a business is, in effect, citing a source. It prefers sources that say something specific. "We offer high-quality solutions" is unquotable. "A standard two-bedroom deep clean takes our team about four hours and includes inside the oven" is a sentence an assistant can hand to a customer with a straight face.
Specific numbers, specific processes, specific opinions. Case studies with real outcomes. Comparisons that admit when a competitor's option is the better fit. A short FAQ on each service page. If you use AI to help you write, that is fine; just make sure a human with actual knowledge adds the specifics the machine cannot know. We wrote about that balance back when it was new in writing great SEO content with AI, and the advice has aged better than most of 2023 did.
Step 5: check your own visibility, then repeat monthly
You do not need a tool to start. Open ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity and ask them the questions your customers ask: "best [your service] in [your city]," "who should I hire for [your specialty]," "is [your business name] any good." Note three things: are you mentioned, what do they say about you, and which sources do they cite instead of you.
Those cited sources are your to-do list. If a local directory keeps getting quoted, make sure your listing there is complete. If a competitor's pricing page is quoted, write a better one. Do it again in a month. AI answers change far more often than classic rankings, which is annoying, but it also means your improvements show up faster.
What not to bother with
- Special "AI" files and plugins. Google says plainly that none are required, and no other platform has published a requirement either. Spend the money on better pages.
- Stuffing your pages with "ChatGPT," "AI" and your city name. Assistants summarize meaning, not keyword counts. It reads badly to humans and gains you nothing.
- Fake reviews and fake FAQs. Assistants cross-reference. Getting caught in a contradiction is worse than being absent.
The pattern across all of this is almost boringly reassuring: the businesses that get recommended by AI are the ones that would get recommended by a well-informed friend. Clear about what they do, consistent everywhere, specific about price and process, and easy to look up. Do that, keep the robots welcome, and the assistants will do the rest of the talking for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT or Perplexity?
Not in the organic answers. The citations in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity come from what the assistants read on the open web, so the lever is your website and your listings, not a bid.
Do I need schema markup to appear in AI Overviews?
Google states there is "no special schema.org structured data that you need to add." Structured data is still useful for regular search features, so keep it if you have it, but it is not an entry ticket.
Is blocking GPTBot going to hurt my visibility in ChatGPT?
No. GPTBot is the training crawler. Visibility in ChatGPT's search answers depends on OAI-SearchBot, which you can allow separately.
How often should I check what the assistants say about my business?
Monthly is a good rhythm for most small businesses, and after any big change such as a new service, a move or a rebrand.
Which platform matters most?
The one your customers use, which varies by industry and country. Check all four; it takes ten minutes, and the one that surprises you is usually the one worth fixing first.
