How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

Updated 22 October 2026 · 5 min read

SHORT ANSWER

You cannot make ChatGPT recommend your business, but you can make it easy to find and trust you: allow OpenAI's search crawler (OAI-SearchBot), state what you do plainly on your site, use the same facts on every profile, publish pages that answer buyer questions, add matching structured data, and earn mentions on other sites.

Nobody can make ChatGPT recommend a business. What you can do is make sure it can find you, understand you and find trustworthy pages that describe you. Here is what OpenAI says about how ChatGPT search works, and what to do about it.

What OpenAI says

ChatGPT can search the web when a question would benefit from current information, and answers that use search can include citations to the sources it used.
OpenAI says ChatGPT ranks search results using multiple factors intended to help users find relevant, reliable information.
To appear in ChatGPT search, OpenAI's search crawler (OAI-SearchBot) must be allowed to access your site. This is separate from GPTBot, which collects content for training.
For products, OpenAI says ChatGPT uses structured metadata such as price and description, from merchants and third-party providers, along with other content.

The practical steps

Allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, and check that your firewall or CDN does not block it either.
State your facts plainly on your own site: what you sell or do, who for, where, and what makes you different, near the top of the home and About pages.
Use the same business name, description and details on every profile and directory, so assistants do not confuse you with someone else.
Publish pages that answer the questions buyers actually ask, with specifics an assistant can quote: sizes, materials, prices, timelines, comparisons.
Add structured data that matches what the page shows, especially for products, organisation details and FAQs.
Earn mentions on sources you do not control: reviews, articles, lists and communities in your field.
Check the same buyer questions in ChatGPT every month and write down what changes.

What to expect

Answers vary from one run to the next and change as the assistant's sources change. Treat AI visibility as a trend to measure over months, not a switch to flip. Our own baseline, published on this site, starts at zero, and we report it monthly.

Common questions

Is OAI-SearchBot the same as GPTBot?

No. OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT search, while GPTBot collects content that may be used for training. You can allow one and block the other.

How long does it take to show up in ChatGPT?

There is no fixed time. OpenAI says a robots.txt change can take about 24 hours to take effect in search. Being recommended depends on what trustworthy sources say about you, which builds over months.

How do I check whether ChatGPT mentions my business?

Ask it the questions your customers ask, in fresh chats, and write down whether you appear, how you are described and which sites are cited. Our guide on checking AI mentions walks through it step by step.

Sources

Free tools: AI crawler checker · llms.txt generator · robots.txt AI rules generator