How to get recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews

To be named by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, let their crawlers into your website, put the plain facts about your business in text on your site and your Google Business Profile, and earn genuine reviews and mentions elsewhere. When these engines search the web, they write from pages their crawlers can read, and Google also draws on its own data such as your Business Profile. There is no form to submit and no special code that guarantees a mention.

What is an AI answer engine

An AI answer engine is a search tool that writes a short answer in its own words and links to the pages it drew on. Common ones in the UK include ChatGPT search, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot.

How many people in the UK see AI answers

About 30% of searches in the UK now show an AI Overview, and 53% of UK adults say they see these summaries often, according to Ofcom’s 2025 online nation research. The same Ofcom report counted 1.8 billion UK visits to ChatGPT in the first eight months of 2025, up from 368 million in the same months of 2024.

Do people click the links in AI Overviews

Rarely. In a Pew Research study of US browsing, people clicked a link inside a Google AI summary in just 1% of visits where one appeared. If that holds in the UK, being named in the summary text is often all the exposure a business gets.

Where do ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews get their information

When they search, each engine finds pages through a crawler or a search index and cites only pages it can reach, so a page it cannot reach will not be quoted or linked.

• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode use Google’s normal index. A page must be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet, and that is the whole technical requirement. Google also says these features may run several related searches across subtopics and data sources to build one answer, and it lists keeping your Business Profile and Merchant Center details up to date as a best practice.
• ChatGPT search uses OpenAI’s crawler, OAI-SearchBot, to find pages. OpenAI says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, apart from plain navigational links.
• Perplexity uses PerplexityBot, which it says is designed to surface and link websites in its search results.
• Microsoft Copilot draws on Bing. Bing’s AI Performance report counts citations across Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and select partner integrations, and Microsoft’s documentation for Copilot at work says it may fetch information from the Bing search service when web search is on.

Mentions on other websites also count. For local results, Google says prominence takes into account how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have. Directories, trade bodies, local news and review sites are all pages an engine can find when it runs those related searches.

How do I get my business mentioned in AI answers

Start with the two technical checks below, then work through steps 3 to 7 over the following weeks.

1. Let the crawlers in. Open yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt and check nothing blocks Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot. Google’s advice is to allow crawling in robots.txt and in any CDN or hosting layer as well. If your site sits behind Cloudflare, look at its bot settings: since 1 July 2025 every new domain on Cloudflare is asked whether to allow AI crawlers, with blocking as the default, so check what the setting is.

   If your robots.txt contains either of the groups below, it is blocking crawlers. The first shuts out ChatGPT search only. The second shuts out every crawler that has no group of its own, Googlebot included, because Google’s robots.txt guide says such a crawler falls back to the global * group. Delete them unless you mean it.

   User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
   Disallow: /
   
   User-agent: *
   Disallow: /

2. Run your home page and each service page through the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. A page marked “URL is not on Google” will not appear in Google Search results, so it cannot appear in an AI Overview either.

3. Google advises making sure important content is available in text form. Your site should state what you do, where you work, what it costs or how pricing works, and your opening hours, in words on the page as well as in any images or PDFs. Give each main service its own page. An online shop should keep prices, stock and delivery costs in page text and current in Merchant Center, which Google lists as a best practice for AI features.

4. Because people using AI search ask longer, more specific questions and follow-ups, write short answers to the ones your customers ask. A dentist in Bristol might answer “Are you taking new NHS patients?” and “How much is a hygiene appointment?”. A solicitor in Leeds might explain what a fixed-fee conveyancing quote includes.

5. Complete and verify your Google Business Profile. Google’s local ranking guidance asks for the right category, accurate hours including special hours, a full address if customers visit, attributes such as parking or Wi-Fi, and photos. Verified profiles are more likely to appear in search results.

6. Ask every customer for a review, whether or not they seemed happy, using the review link or QR code Google gives you. Its policy bans offering discounts or free goods in exchange for reviews and selectively asking only happy customers, and the CMA published guidance on UK consumer law for reviews for the new rules that took effect in April 2025. Reply to reviews, including the bad ones.

7. Get listed where your trade and town are written about: join your trade association’s directory, offer the local paper a story, and ask suppliers who publish case studies to include you. Each is another page where an engine finds your name next to what you do.

How do I check if ChatGPT recommends my business

Ask the engines the questions your customers ask and write down what they say. Do it once a month, using the same questions, so you can see change.

1. Write ten questions a customer would type, with your town in them: “best independent coffee shop in Harrogate”, “emergency plumber Leeds open now”, “estate agent in Reading with low fees”.
2. Run each in ChatGPT (with search on), Google (look for the AI Overview and try AI Mode), Perplexity and Copilot.
3. Record three things per answer: are you named, which competitors are named, and which pages are cited as sources. The cited pages tell you where to be mentioned next.

Then add the data the platforms give you:

• In Google Search Console, clicks from AI features are counted in the Performance report under the “Web” search type, mixed in with normal results. You will not see them separately.
• In Bing Webmaster Tools, the AI Performance report (launched in public preview in February 2026) shows how often your pages are cited, which pages, and a sample of the “grounding queries” the AI used to find them.
• In your analytics, check the referral report for visits from AI tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.

What should a small business fix first for AI answers

Fix crawler blocks first, because an engine can’t quote a site it can’t read. Take a café in Harrogate. The owner runs ten questions, starting with “best brunch in Harrogate”, through ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity and Copilot. All four name competitors. None mention the café, even though it has a loyal following and decent reviews.

The owner then looks at the cited sources, the website and the Business Profile, and finds four problems:

• The site’s robots.txt, copied from an old template, blocks all bots except Googlebot. That alone stops the ChatGPT, Perplexity and Bing crawlers from reading the site, so those engines have almost nothing of the café’s own to quote.
• The menu is a photographed PDF, so the words “brunch”, “vegan” and “gluten-free” appear nowhere in text.
• The Google Business Profile lists winter hours in July and has no photos of food.
• The cited sources for competitors include a local food blog’s brunch round-up and a Harrogate visitor guide. The café is in neither.

The fixes take an afternoon plus a few emails: allow the crawlers, retype the menu as a web page with prices, correct the hours and add a dozen photos, put a review QR code by the till, and send the food blogger and visitor guide a short note with the new brunch menu. The owner then runs the same ten questions next month and records any change.

How long does it take to show up in AI answers

OpenAI and Perplexity pick up a robots.txt change within about a day, but Google can take days to months to recrawl, and reviews and mentions take months to build. OpenAI puts its delay at about 24 hours and Perplexity at up to a day.

On Google, its own guide says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months, and its AI features page warns that recrawling can take days to months. That is why a fixed monthly check is more useful than refreshing ChatGPT every morning.

What to do next

This week, open your robots.txt, run your ten questions through the four engines and note who gets named. Fix anything that blocks a crawler, then put the missing facts on your site and your Business Profile.

How we check and work on this every month is on our AI search page.

If you would rather see how you compare first, Padon’s free check looks at your business against the competition nearby and emails a short report within two working days.