Originally published on depra.ai on 21 Jul 2026, updated 15 Sept 2026.
What OpenAI documents about ChatGPT search, five steps to get your brand named in its answers, and how to tell if the work paid off.
SEO for ChatGPT is usually called GEO (generative engine optimization) or AEO (answer engine optimization): the work of getting your brand named inside AI answers. You get ChatGPT to recommend your brand by letting OpenAI's search crawler read your site, stating your facts the same way everywhere, getting named on the pages ChatGPT cites for your category, and then checking many answers to see if it worked.
What moves you is the evidence ChatGPT finds when it searches: your own pages, and what other websites say about you.
Our own numbers come from 480 AI shopping answers we collected in India on 14 Aug 2026.
What is ChatGPT SEO?
ChatGPT SEO is the work of making ChatGPT name your brand, describe it correctly and link to your site when people ask about your category. Many Google SEO basics still apply: pages a crawler can read, clear answers, and mentions on other trusted sites. The table shows where the two differ.
ChatGPT SEO, SEO for ChatGPT, LLM SEO, GEO and AEO all name the same job. What is GEO and LLM SEO define the terms.
Google SEO compared with ChatGPT SEO
| Question | Google SEO | ChatGPT SEO |
|---|---|---|
| What you want | A high position in the list of links | Your brand named in the answer, described correctly |
| Crawler that must reach you | Googlebot | OAI-SearchBot, for ChatGPT search |
| What a win looks like | Rankings and clicks | The share of answers that name you, and where you come in them |
| How to check | One search shows a fairly stable ranking | Many answers, because the same question returns different brands |
Crawler facts from OpenAI's crawler documentation, checked 15 Sep 2026.
How does ChatGPT search pick its sources?
OpenAI documents the inputs to ChatGPT search. It does not publish how it ranks pages or chooses which ones to cite. Here is what its public pages say, checked on 15 Sep 2026.
- It can decide to search. OpenAI's help page on searching the web with ChatGPT says ChatGPT can search the web on its own when a question needs current information.
- It rewrites your question. The same page says ChatGPT often turns your question into one or more shorter search queries and sends them to third-party search providers. It may pass on your general location, based on your IP address, and use saved memories if memory is on.
- Your site must allow OAI-SearchBot. OAI-SearchBot is the bot OpenAI uses to find pages for ChatGPT search. OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that block it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
- GPTBot is a different bot. GPTBot collects pages that may be used to train OpenAI's models. Blocking it opts your content out of training. OAI-SearchBot has its own robots.txt rule. Our AI crawlers list gives the exact lines for every OpenAI bot.
- Any public website can appear. OpenAI's publishers and developers FAQ says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search, and tells site owners to make sure they are not blocking OAI-SearchBot.
What OpenAI does not publish
There is no public ranking formula, no list of trusted websites and no rule for how many brands an answer names. You can see the source links. In our study, ChatGPT with web search showed them in all 80 English answers, 2.5 links per answer on average, so each page it cites for your category carries a lot of weight.
Step 1: Let ChatGPT read your site
Start by checking that OAI-SearchBot can fetch your pages. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt, the plain text file that tells bots which pages they may fetch, and look for a Disallow rule under User-agent: OAI-SearchBot or under User-agent: *. If a rule blocks the bot, ChatGPT search will not show your pages in its answers.
Then check what the bot can see. Vercel's December 2024 analysis of AI crawlers found that OpenAI's crawlers fetched JavaScript files and did not run them. Prices, sizes, ingredients and delivery times that only appear after a script loads may be invisible to them. Put those facts in the page HTML.
Write each important page so the answer comes first. Use the buyer's question as a heading, answer it in the first two sentences, then add detail. Schema markup, the structured data that labels a page as a product or an FAQ, helps Google. OpenAI does not say whether ChatGPT reads it, so add it for Google and keep every fact in visible text as well.
Adding citations, quotations and statistics raised a page's visibility in AI answers by up to about 40% in a GPT-3.5 test setup. (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024)
Step 2: Keep your brand facts the same everywhere
When ChatGPT searches, it can build its description of you from several pages. When your site, marketplace listings and directory profiles disagree, the answer can repeat the wrong version or drop the detail. Pick one version of each fact and use it everywhere you control.
- One description. Write one sentence that says what you sell and who it is for. Use the same sentence on your homepage, About page, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile and marketplace seller pages.
- One product name. Spell each product the same way on your store and on every marketplace.
- One set of numbers. Keep prices, pack sizes, certifications and founding year identical. When a price changes, update every listing in the same week.
Step 3: Get named on the pages ChatGPT cites
When ChatGPT searches, it tends to name the brands its source pages name. The quickest route is to find the exact pages ChatGPT cites when it answers your buyers' questions, then work to get your brand onto those pages. How to get cited by AI covers this in depth.
To find the pages, ask ChatGPT your top buying questions with search on and open every source link. Note the ones that name your competitors and leave you out. Those are your targets:
- Best-of lists. Articles such as "best face wash for oily skin in India". Write to the author with facts they can check: price, what makes the product different, and a sample if you sell a physical product.
- Marketplace listings. Complete your listings on the marketplaces your buyers use and ask real customers for reviews.
- Forums and communities. Reddit, Quora and category forums appear as sources in some answers. Take part from a named brand account and answer questions honestly. Hidden promotion breaks the rules of most communities.
- Your own comparison pages. Publish an honest comparison of your product against your main rivals, including who should pick the other option.
Doing the lookup at scale
Checking sources by hand works for a handful of questions. Depra's citation gap analysis does it across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews: it lists websites that recommend your competitors but never mention you, with competitors' own sites filtered out.
Step 4: Answer the questions buyers ask ChatGPT, in their words
Buyers rarely type your brand name. They ask for help choosing: which face wash for oily skin under ₹500, which running shoes under ₹3,000. Collect 20 to 40 of these questions from reviews, support chats, sales calls and marketplace Q&A. Then make sure your site answers each one plainly, with the price, who the product suits and who it does not suit.
In India, many buyers type in Hinglish, which is Hindi and English written in English letters. Here is one question from our study in both versions:
- English: Which face wash should I buy for oily skin in India under ₹500?
- Hinglish: India mein oily skin ke liye 500 rupees ke andar konsa face wash kharidna chahiye?
What changed when buyers asked in Hinglish?
We asked 10 questions like this in both languages, 8 times each, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity from inside India. ChatGPT answered all 80 Hinglish questions in Hinglish. We compared the share of brands two answers have in common. On ChatGPT, that share was 2.2 percentage points lower for an English and a Hinglish answer than for two repeat answers in the same language. The gap was 7.8 points on Gemini and 23.4 points on Perplexity. Gemini also attached sources to 90.0% of English answers and only 41.3% of Hinglish answers. The full data is in our English vs Hinglish study.
On ChatGPT, the language of the question made little difference. On Gemini and Perplexity it did, so track the Hinglish versions of your questions too. Hinglish AI visibility shows how Depra tracks both languages.
Step 5: Check many answers to see if it worked
Measure with many answers, because ChatGPT rarely gives the same answer twice. In our study, two ChatGPT answers to the same question, asked within one hour from India, shared 54.7% of the brands they named. One screenshot can make you look like the winner or like you are missing. Does ChatGPT give the same answer to everyone? has the full breakdown.
Count the share of answers that name you. Ask each question several times in a new chat, logged out or with memory off, and add up the results across your questions. For a brand named in half of its answers, 20 answers give a 95% confidence range of about 30% to 70%, and 100 answers narrow it to about 40% to 60%. A confidence range is the band the true share most likely sits in. How to measure AI visibility explains the maths, and how to track brand mentions in AI answers gives you a spreadsheet to copy.
- Freeze the questions. Keep the same wording each month, so a change in results comes from ChatGPT and your work on the web.
- Log more than the mention. Record your position, the tone, the sentence that names you and every cited site. A wrong price in an answer points to the page you need to fix.
- Compare periods. Put this month's share next to last month's. Treat a change as real only when the two confidence ranges do not overlap.
What does a ChatGPT SEO tool do?
A ChatGPT SEO tool asks your buyers' questions to ChatGPT on a schedule, stores the answers and counts how often each brand is named. It replaces the manual checking in Step 5. The work in Steps 1 to 4 still happens on your site and on other websites.
What a tool can do
- Ask the same questions every day from your country, with web search on, and keep every answer.
- Show the share of answers that name you and each competitor, your position and the tone.
- List the websites cited in answers, and which of them name competitors and leave you out.
- Check whether your robots.txt blocks OAI-SearchBot and other AI crawlers.
What a tool cannot do
- Change what ChatGPT says, or promise a recommendation.
- Show the exact answer each person gets. Memory, chat history and location make individual answers differ.
- Prove why ChatGPT chose a brand. Cited sources show where to look first.
- Give a reliable count of how often a question is asked. OpenAI does not publish that number.
How Depra does it
Depra's ChatGPT visibility tracker asks your questions to ChatGPT with web search every day from inside your chosen country, next to Gemini and Google AI Overviews daily and Perplexity weekly. It suggests buying questions that do not name your brand, with Hinglish versions when India is a market, stores every answer, and scores you against your competitors. Plans start at ₹1,999 a month plus GST, with 7 days free on any plan, card required. See Depra pricing.
A worked example: a ₹449 face wash brand in India
A made-up D2C brand sells a ₹449 face wash for oily skin. The example shows the order of work, with no promised result: OpenAI publishes no timeline for how quickly answers change.
- Week 1, check access. An old robots.txt rule blocks every bot except Googlebot. The team allows OAI-SearchBot and moves the price and skin type from an image carousel into the page text.
- Week 1, fix facts. The product is called Oil Control Face Wash on the site and Oil Free Cleanser on a marketplace. They pick one name and update every listing.
- Week 2, answer the question. They publish a page that answers the under ₹500 question honestly, including which skin types should choose a different product.
- Weeks 2 to 6, get named. They ask ChatGPT the question 5 times with search on and open every source. Two best-of articles name competitors, so they send both authors the price, ingredient list and samples.
- Every month, measure. They ask 15 buying questions 5 times each, in English and Hinglish, and compare their share with the month before, ranges included.
Frequently asked
What is SEO for ChatGPT called?
It is usually called GEO, short for generative engine optimization, or AEO, short for answer engine optimization. Some people say LLM SEO or ChatGPT SEO. All four describe the work of getting your brand named and cited in AI answers. AEO vs GEO vs SEO compares the terms.
How do you rank in ChatGPT?
ChatGPT has no fixed ranking to climb. Each answer names a few brands, and the list changes between answers. To show up more often, allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, put clear answers and facts in your page text, and get named on the websites ChatGPT cites for your category.
How do I show up in ChatGPT search results?
First make sure your robots.txt does not block OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI's crawler documentation says blocked sites will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. After that, work on getting named on the pages ChatGPT already cites for your category.
Can I pay ChatGPT to recommend my brand?
No. OpenAI has started showing ads in ChatGPT, labelled as ads and kept separate from the answer, and its help page on ads in ChatGPT says ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers. A recommendation inside the answer comes from what ChatGPT finds about you.
Does blocking GPTBot remove my site from ChatGPT?
No. GPTBot collects pages that may be used to train OpenAI's models. ChatGPT search uses OAI-SearchBot, which has its own robots.txt rule, so allow OAI-SearchBot whatever you decide about GPTBot. Our AI crawlers list has the lines to copy.
How long does ChatGPT SEO take to work?
OpenAI says a robots.txt change takes about 24 hours to reach its systems. For everything else it publishes no timeline. A new mention on a page ChatGPT cites can show up the next time ChatGPT searches, while anything the model learned in training changes only with a new model. Measure monthly and compare periods.
What if ChatGPT recommends my brand but gets the facts wrong?
Open the source links in that answer and find where the wrong fact lives: your own site, a marketplace listing, a directory or an old article. Correct it there, then ask the same question again over the following weeks. ChatGPT often repeats what its sources say.
See what ChatGPT says about your brand
Depra asks your buyers' questions to ChatGPT with web search, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, and shows which brands get named. Start 7 days free on any plan, card required. See how it works.
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