How to Show Up in ChatGPT and AI Search: What Actually Affects It
Why some businesses get named in AI answers and others don't, according to Google, OpenAI and the research that holds up.
Ask ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode to recommend a business like yours and you may get your competitors' names instead of your own. Most people who find this page arrive with some version of that question: why do they show up and I don't?
The useful answer is less exciting than the new acronyms suggest. Google says that its AI answers rest on the same systems as ordinary search ranking. What does change is how much a mention is worth, and where the AI goes looking for sources.
What affects whether a business appears in ChatGPT or AI search?
Mostly the same things that decide whether you rank in Google. The AI tool must be allowed to read your page and the page must be indexed. The content must answer the specific question being asked, with details that are clearly yours. For a local business, a complete Google Business Profile matters as much as the website.
Is GEO different from SEO?
No, according to Google. Its guide to generative AI features in Search says that "the best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems." GEO (generative engine optimisation) and AEO (answer engine optimisation) are new names for work that already had one.
The same guide is just as clear about what you do not need. You do not need special AI text files or markup, and there is no need to cut your content into small pieces for machines. Nor is there a special way of writing for AI. Its advice is to make pages for your audience.
That matters when you are buying. If someone offers you a separate GEO service, ask what they would do that good SEO does not. A clear answer is worth hearing. A vague one usually means the same work under a new label.
What changes when an AI writes the answer
The rules are the same, but the results look different in two ways.
Fewer people click, so being named counts for more
Pew Research Center tracked the real browsing of 900 adults in the United States and found that people clicked a result link on 8% of visits to Google results pages that showed an AI summary, against 15% when there was none. Links inside the summary itself were clicked on 1% of visits.
So the mention carries more of the value. If an AI answer names your business, the reader may remember it and look you up later, or call you directly, without ever clicking the source. If your traffic has dropped while your impressions held steady, this is one of the likely reasons, and we go through the others in why your website traffic is dropping.
The AI looks beyond the first page
AI tools do not simply repeat the top ten results. They split a question into related searches and pull sources from all of them. When Ahrefs compared the pages cited by four AI assistants with Google's results, only 12% of those citations ranked in Google's top ten for the same question. In its newer analysis of Google's AI Overviews, fewer than four in ten citations came from the top ten, about half the share it had measured in an earlier study.
That second figure is a warning in itself: numbers about AI search move quickly, so treat any of them as a snapshot. The direction is what counts. A page that answers a narrow follow-up question well can be cited even if it never ranks for the broad search term.
Why your competitors show up and you don't
When a business is missing from AI answers, the cause is usually one of these.
| Check | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Can AI tools read your site? | OpenAI says that sites blocking its OAI-SearchBot crawler will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Blocking GPTBot, its training crawler, does not affect search. |
| Is the page in Google's index? | Google's AI features draw on its normal index. A page that Search Console reports as not indexed cannot be cited there. |
| Does the page answer the question? | AI answers quote specifics. A sentence like "we offer tailored solutions" gives them nothing to use. |
| Are your business details consistent? | The details on your website and on your Google Business Profile should match, down to the opening hours. |
| Is there a person behind the content? | A named author and a real About page make a claim easier to trust and to attribute. |
| Do others mention you? | Mentions on other sites, such as the regional press or a trade association, help an AI connect your business to the topic. |
What to do, in order
- Check that AI tools can get in. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and make sure OAI-SearchBot is not disallowed. Ask whoever runs your hosting whether a bot-blocking setting is stopping AI crawlers before they reach the site.
- Fix indexing first. In Search Console, the Pages report shows what Google has left out and why. A page Google has not indexed is out of the running for its AI answers too.
- Answer the questions your customers actually ask. Take the questions you hear on the phone and give each one a page or a clear section, with the answer in the first lines and the detail below. Our guide to what SEO is and how it works covers how to structure those pages.
- Complete your Google Business Profile. Google's guidance points local businesses to it directly, and it is the same work we describe in our local SEO guide.
- Put a name on your content. Say who wrote it and why they know the subject.
- Earn mentions elsewhere. A quote in the regional paper or a listing with your trade association does more for an AI's picture of you than another page on your own site.
If you use AI tools to write any of this, Google's position on that is a separate question, and we cover it in does Google penalise AI-generated content?
How to check where you stand
Ask the AI tools the questions your customers ask, in the words they would use, and note which businesses get named. Do it again every few months, because the answers change.
Then look at Search Console. Its performance report shows which searches already bring you impressions, and it includes a separate report on how your site performs in Google's generative AI features.
The searches that show this article in Google are a good example. Almost all of them are full questions, such as "what affects whether a business appears in ChatGPT or AI-powered search results?" Long, specific questions like that are the kind an AI tool breaks a search into, and they are worth answering on your own site in your own words.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an llms.txt file to appear in AI search?
Not for Google. Its guidance says you do not need new machine-readable or AI text files for its generative AI features.
Does blocking AI bots stop my business appearing in ChatGPT?
It depends on which bot. OpenAI runs separate crawlers: GPTBot collects content for training its models, and OAI-SearchBot finds pages for ChatGPT search. You can block the first and still appear in search answers. Block the second and, according to OpenAI, your site will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.
Is SEO dead now that people ask AI?
No. Google says its AI features are built on its core ranking systems, so the work that helps you rank is the work that gets you cited. The change is in the payoff: a mention without a click is now a real result. We look at which trends matter and which are noise in SEO trends: what actually changes and what doesn't.
Should a local business worry about AI search?
Start with what you probably already have. Google's guidance for generative AI features points local businesses to their Google Business Profile, so keeping it complete and accurate is the first step, before any new content.
What is the difference between GEO, AEO and SEO?
Mostly the label. SEO is the older name. AEO was used for getting into featured snippets and voice answers, and GEO for being cited by AI tools. Google treats all three as the same work.
Salty Lavender, a full-service marketing agency in Faro, handles SEO with AI answers in mind from the start. If you want to know why your competitors are being named and you are not, tell us what you sell and where, or write to hello@saltylavender.com.