When people ask ChatGPT for a recommendation, it searches, reads and cites. ChatGPT SEO is the work of being one of the sources it reads, and the name it recommends.
It runs one or more web searches for your question, reads the pages it retrieves and builds an answer from the passages that best support it1. Brands that are easy to crawl, clearly described and mentioned by sources it trusts get cited more often2. You can track how often that happens across the prompts your customers actually ask3.
[1]
For questions that need current information, ChatGPT search retrieves live results rather than relying only on what the model learned in training.
A person asks a question, often longer and more specific than a typical search.
The question is rewritten into one or more search queries.
Results come from third-party search providers and from OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot.
Retrieved pages are read and the passages that best answer the question are chosen.
The response is written, with citations linking back to the sources used.
What the model learned in training: how often and how consistently your brand was described across the web. It changes slowly, with new models.
What ChatGPT search finds today: your pages and the pages that mention you. It can change within weeks.
GPTBot (training) and OAI-SearchBot (search) are separate crawlers with separate robots.txt rules. You can allow one and block the other.
[2]
01 · crawl
Allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, and check that your CDN or firewall is not quietly blocking it.
02 · index
Strong traditional search visibility still matters. Make sure your important pages are indexed, including in Bing Webmaster Tools.
03 · answer
Clear questions as headings, direct answers beneath them, comparison tables and specifics that are easy to quote.
04 · entity
One clear description of what you do, who for and where, repeated on your site, profiles and Organization schema.
05 · mentions
Reviews, comparisons, industry publications and community threads are frequently cited. Being described well there counts.
06 · original
Original data, real pricing, documented results and expert detail give ChatGPT a reason to cite you rather than a summary of you.
ChatGPT is a useful assistant for SEO teams, within limits. This is our honest view.
[3]
Rankings do not exist inside an answer, so we measure something closer to the outcome.
A fixed set of the questions your buyers ask, run on a schedule, recording whether you are mentioned, cited and recommended.
Which domains ChatGPT cites for your topics, and how your share changes over time.
Visits from ChatGPT in your analytics. Links from ChatGPT usually carry utm_source=chatgpt.com.
Want the full service?
Our ChatGPT SEO services start with an AI visibility audit of your brand.
It is the practice of making your brand easy for ChatGPT to find, understand and cite when people ask questions in your category. It overlaps heavily with good traditional SEO, plus work on how your brand is described across the web.
The foundations are shared: crawlable pages, clear content and authority. The differences are in what gets measured, the weight of third-party mentions, and writing content that can be quoted as an answer.
No one can. Answers vary by prompt, user and time. What we can do is improve the inputs ChatGPT relies on and measure how often you appear across a fixed set of prompts.
That is a business decision about training use. Blocking GPTBot does not block OAI-SearchBot, so you can stay visible in ChatGPT search while opting out of training.
Largely, yes. Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI features also retrieve and cite web sources, so the same levers apply, with different crawlers and indexes.
Technical access and on-page changes can show up in retrieval within weeks. Changing how your brand is described across the web, and in future models, takes longer.
Tell us your brand and the questions you want to be the answer to. We will check how ChatGPT describes you today and send back what we would change first.
