ChatGPT SEO: how to get cited and recommended by ChatGPT

How ChatGPT picks the sites it cites

When a question needs current information, ChatGPT searches the web. OpenAI describes the mechanics in its help center: ChatGPT rewrites the question into one or more targeted queries, sends them to search partners, reviews what comes back, and may run more specific follow-up queries before it answers. The answer then cites the pages it relied on, with a Sources button listing them.

Two gates decide whether your pages can be part of that:

1. OAI-SearchBot must be allowed. OpenAI is explicit that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers. A Disallow for it, a blanket User-agent: * block, or a CDN "block AI bots" setting that catches it all take you out.
2. Your pages must be findable through search. Because ChatGPT leans on search partners, a page that no search engine indexes is hard for ChatGPT to discover, even if OAI-SearchBot could read it.

Past the gates, ChatGPT chooses the pages that answer the specific question. That is why a clear "pricing" page or a "Linear vs Jira" comparison gets cited while a slogan-heavy homepage doesn't.

What to fix first, in order

1. Access. Run the live check above. OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User should be allowed on the pages you want cited, and your firewall should not challenge them. Training (GPTBot) is a separate choice: block it if you like, it doesn't affect search.
2. Indexing. Make sure your key pages are in the major search indexes. Our robots.txt checker catches crawler blocks; Index Coverage in Pick Monitor checks Google, Bing and Brave page by page.
3. Pages that answer buyer questions. Buyers ask ChatGPT things like "best invoicing tool for freelancers in the EU". Have a page that answers that kind of question in its first paragraph, with facts an answer can quote: who it's for, price, what makes it different, and honest comparisons.
4. Mentions where ChatGPT already looks. Every ChatGPT answer cites someone. If it cites review sites, comparison articles or community threads in your category and none mention you, that is the gap to close. The free Pick Check lists the sources each engine cited instead of you.

Shopping in ChatGPT

For product questions ChatGPT shows product results built from structured product data. OpenAI's agentic commerce program lets merchants submit a product feed (CSV or JSON, refreshed regularly), and OpenAI's documentation says complete, recommended attributes improve ranking and relevance. On your own pages, product schema with price and availability, plain product descriptions and real review content help both ChatGPT and every other engine. See ChatGPT shopping optimization for the store-specific steps.

What not to do

• Don't block GPTBot expecting to fix search, or allow it expecting to rank. It is training only.
• Don't write for "ChatGPT SEO" tricks. Hidden prompts, keyword lists and invisible text don't survive a model reading the page; a plain answer does.
• Don't measure with one manual chat. Answers vary from run to run and by phrasing. Ask the same questions several times and track the rate.

Measuring progress

Track two numbers: how often ChatGPT names you for the questions your buyers ask, and which sources it cites instead. The Pick Check does this with repeated runs and a likely range for each rate, so a change from 2 in 9 to 5 in 9 means something, and a single lucky answer doesn't.