How to Get Your Business Mentioned in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

To get your business mentioned in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, make your site crawlable by the bots that feed their live search, describe your business the same way everywhere, write passages that answer one question each, and earn mentions on other trusted sites. AI answers name the businesses they find in search results at the moment of the question and the businesses the web already describes consistently. This work is called answer engine optimization (AEO) or generative engine optimization (GEO), and it builds on normal SEO rather than replacing it.

I have worked in SEO since 2020, including growing one site to 200,000 Google visitors a day, and I now help businesses get named in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answers. The steps below are the order I work through.

How do ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity choose which businesses to mention?

Answer engines choose businesses from 2 places: what the model learned during training, and what it retrieves from a search index while it writes the answer. Training data is fixed at a cutoff date and you cannot edit it. Live retrieval is where a business gains or loses mentions week to week.

Each system retrieves from a different source:

• ChatGPT search uses OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI's crawler documentation (OpenAI, 2026) says "is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features." The ChatGPT search help article (OpenAI Help Center) adds that ChatGPT rewrites the question into targeted queries and sends them to partner search providers, and it lists Microsoft among them.
• Perplexity cites live web results. Perplexity's crawler documentation (Perplexity) describes PerplexityBot as "designed to surface and link websites in search results on Perplexity."
• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on Google's own index. Google's AI features guide (Google Search Central, updated December 2025) states that a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and that "there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode." The Google-specific steps are in how to appear in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode.

The practical result: a business invisible in Google and Bing is invisible to most AI search too. Fix that first with my guide to why a website is not showing on Google.

Step 1: Let AI crawlers reach your pages

Open your robots.txt file and confirm it allows the crawlers that feed AI answers. Each AI crawler token controls something different, and blocking the wrong one removes you from answers without any warning.

These 4 tokens matter most:

• OAI-SearchBot: controls whether your pages appear in ChatGPT search answers. OpenAI states that sites opted out of it are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
• GPTBot: controls whether OpenAI uses your content to train future models. Blocking it does not remove you from ChatGPT search.
• PerplexityBot: controls whether Perplexity surfaces and links your pages. Perplexity states it is not used to train AI foundation models.
• Google-Extended: controls whether Google uses your content to train Gemini models and to ground Gemini answers. Google's crawler documentation (Google Search Central) states that Google-Extended "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal." AI Overviews follow normal Googlebot and snippet rules.

A business that wants AI mentions but not model training allows OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot and blocks GPTBot. That is a legitimate split, and many site owners set it up backwards.

The two blockers most robots.txt audits miss

Check your firewall and your JavaScript rendering, because both block AI crawlers even when robots.txt allows them. This is where security and SEO collide, and it is the first thing I check from my programming and security side.

Firewalls and bot protection block AI crawlers by default on many setups. Cloudflare (2025) announced on 1 July 2025 that it was "changing the default to block AI crawlers." A site owner who hardened security that year often switched off AI visibility at the same time without knowing it. Review your WAF or bot management rules and allow the verified search crawlers you want.

JavaScript-only content is invisible to most AI crawlers. Vercel's analysis of AI crawler traffic (Zecchini, Moore, Ubl and Siddle, Vercel, 2024) found that "none of the major AI crawlers currently render JavaScript," naming GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot. Serve your key content, for example service descriptions, prices and locations, as server-rendered HTML. Next.js server components and Laravel Blade templates both render this HTML on the server.

Step 2: Make your business a clear entity

Describe your business with the same name, category, location and one-sentence description on every page and profile you control. Language models connect facts about an entity across many sources, and conflicting descriptions weaken the connection.

Apply these 4 fixes:

1. Write one canonical description, for example "Acme Dental is a family dental clinic in Leeds offering implants and emergency care," and reuse it on your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directories.
2. Add Organization or LocalBusiness schema on the home page, or Person schema for a personal brand, with the same name, logo, address and phone number.
3. List your official profiles in the schema sameAs property, for example LinkedIn, Crunchbase and Wikidata.
4. Create an About page that states who runs the business, what it does and where, in plain sentences.

Schema does not trigger AI mentions by itself. Google's AI features guide states that no special schema is required. Its value is consistency: it removes doubt about which business a fact belongs to.

Step 3: Write passages that survive extraction

Write each section so its first 1-2 sentences answer one question completely, without relying on the paragraphs around it. AI search engines extract passages, not whole pages, and a passage that only makes sense in context gets skipped.

Follow these 5 writing rules:

• Question headings: phrase H2s and H3s as the questions buyers type, for example "How much does a dental implant cost in Leeds?"
• Answer first: put the direct answer in the first sentence under the heading.
• Specific numbers: state prices, timeframes and quantities as figures, not as "affordable" or "fast."
• Named entities: name the products, places and standards you mean instead of "it" or "our solution."
• Comparison tables: use tables for options buyers compare, because tables extract cleanly.

Publish original data, not rewritten advice. A survey of your own customers, pricing benchmarks from your own jobs or results from your own tests gives AI answers a fact they cannot get elsewhere, so they cite you as the source.

Step 4: Earn mentions on other trusted sites

Get your business named on third-party sites that answer engines already retrieve. When ChatGPT or Perplexity answers "best accountant in Manchester," it builds the answer from list articles, review sites and forum threads, not only from business websites.

Target these 4 types of third-party mention:

1. Review platforms: Google reviews, Trustpilot, G2 or the platform specific to your industry.
2. Directories: industry associations, chambers of commerce and niche directories with editorial standards.
3. Press and expert quotes: local news, trade publications and podcasts.
4. Community discussions: genuine, disclosed participation in Reddit threads and industry forums where buyers ask for recommendations.

Run your target prompts in Perplexity first, because it shows its sources. The cited pages are your outreach list.

Step 5: Decide on llms.txt with honest expectations

Add an llms.txt file only as a low-cost extra, not as a ranking tactic. The file is a Markdown summary of your site at /llms.txt, proposed by Jeremy Howard (Answer.AI, 2024) as "a proposal to provide information to help LLMs use websites."

Adoption by search systems is unconfirmed. Google's John Mueller wrote in June 2025 that "no AI system currently uses llms.txt" (Search Engine Roundtable, 2025), and Google's AI features guide states that no AI text files are needed to appear in AI Overviews. I publish one on my own site because it takes 20 minutes, but I spend client time on Steps 1-4.

Step 6: Measure AI mentions

Measure AI visibility with 3 data sources, because no single tool shows the full picture.

Use these 3 methods together:

1. Search Console's generative AI reports. Google (Search Central Blog, June 2026) launched Search Generative AI performance reports showing impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and rolled them out to all websites on 31 August 2026. The reports show impressions, not clicks.
2. Manual prompt testing. Write 20-30 prompts your buyers ask, run them monthly in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and record whether you are named, cited or absent.
3. GA4 referral traffic. Filter Traffic acquisition by session source for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com, and set up a custom channel group called AI search so the numbers stay visible.

Run the website audit checklist alongside this so crawl, speed and indexing issues do not undercut the AEO work. If you want someone to run the full process, my guide on how to hire an SEO consultant covers what to ask before you commit.

Frequently asked questions

Can I pay to get my business mentioned in ChatGPT?

You cannot pay ChatGPT to include your business in its organic answers. Mentions come from what the model retrieves and learned, so the route is crawl access, clear entity information, answer-first content and third-party mentions.

Does blocking GPTBot remove my site from ChatGPT?

Blocking GPTBot does not remove your site from ChatGPT search. GPTBot controls model training, while OAI-SearchBot controls whether your pages appear in ChatGPT search answers, according to OpenAI's crawler documentation.

How do I rank in Google AI Overviews?

Ranking in AI Overviews requires a page that Google has indexed and that is eligible to show with a snippet. Google states there are no additional technical requirements or special optimizations, so strong normal SEO and clear answer-first passages are the method.

Is answer engine optimization different from SEO?

Answer engine optimization is SEO extended to AI answers. It keeps the SEO foundations of crawlability, indexing and relevance, and adds AI crawler access, entity consistency, extractable passages and off-site mentions.

How long does it take to get mentioned in AI answers?

Live-retrieval answers in ChatGPT search, Perplexity and AI Overviews reflect a page once it is crawled and indexed by the search system behind them. Mentions that depend on model training take far longer, because they wait for the next model release.