What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
How AI assistants choose which sources to cite, and what you can change.
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Short answer
ChatGPT SEO is the work of getting your company found, read and named when someone asks ChatGPT for a supplier like you. ChatGPT answers in one of two ways. Either it searches the web, reads a handful of pages and cites them, or it replies from what its model already knows. You can act on the first way directly: let OpenAI’s search crawler in, publish pages that match how the question gets searched, and be present on the sites ChatGPT reads. The second way changes slowly and follows the first.
How ChatGPT finds a company
OpenAI’s help article Searching the web with ChatGPT explains the search side. Four details from it shape the work:
- It decides when to search
ChatGPT may search automatically when a question would benefit from current information, and users can also turn search on by hand.
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“Which agency should I hire in Denver” will often trigger a search. “What is SEO” may not.
- It rewrites the question
ChatGPT turns a chat message into one or more short search queries for its search partners, then may send more specific follow-up queries after reading the first results.
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OpenAI’s example: “good restaurants near me” from a user in the San Francisco area becomes “top restaurants San Francisco”.
- Location and memory feed in
ChatGPT estimates a general location from the IP address, and if memory is on, it may use saved memories when it writes the query.
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Two people asking the same thing can get different searches.
- Partners do part of the search
The article says ChatGPT search sometimes works with other search providers and points to Microsoft’s and Shopify’s privacy policies.
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It does not name every provider, so we check that client pages are indexed in Bing Webmaster Tools as well as in Google.
OpenAI also says it ranks results using several factors meant to surface relevant, reliable information, and that placement is not guaranteed. The exact factors are not public.
OpenAI’s crawlers
OpenAI’s crawler documentation describes three user agents that matter here. Each robots.txt setting works on its own.
| Bot | What it does | If you block it |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | finds pages for ChatGPT search | your site is not shown in ChatGPT search answers, apart from plain navigational links |
| GPTBot | collects material for training OpenAI’s models | the documentation does not tie it to search answers |
| ChatGPT-User | fetches a page when a user’s request needs it | OpenAI says it is not used to decide what appears in search, and robots.txt rules may not apply to it |
OpenAI notes that a robots.txt change takes about 24 hours to reach its search systems. It also publishes the IP addresses its search bot uses (openai.com/searchbot.json). If your host or CDN blocks unknown bots, check that these addresses get through: a firewall rule can undo a correct robots.txt.
What to change on your site
- Let OAI-SearchBot in. Check robots.txt and the bot settings of your hosting, CDN or security plugin. Decide on GPTBot separately; it is a different question.
- One page for each service, in plain words. The rewritten query is short and literal: service, city, sometimes a price word. A page titled “Roof repair in Denver” matches it. A page titled “Solutions” does not.
- Facts written as text. Prices or price ranges, areas you serve, year founded, team size, who the service suits. A price inside an image or a PDF is easy to miss.
- The same facts everywhere. If your site says 2017 and a directory says 2019, ChatGPT may repeat either one. Pick one version and fix the rest.
- Main text in the HTML. We cannot confirm that every crawler runs JavaScript, so we make sure the server sends the full text and the menu links without needing scripts.
- A short answer near the top. The first lines of a page should say what you do, for whom, where and at what price. That is the part most likely to be quoted.
What to change off your site
ChatGPT reads other people’s pages about your market, and they often matter more than your own.
- Round-ups and comparisons. Find the “best X in Y” articles that rank in Google and Bing for your service and city, and ask the authors to consider you, with a reason their readers would care about.
- Directories and review sites. Pick the ones that show up for your searches. A complete profile with the same facts as your site is worth more than ten empty listings.
- Business profiles. Google Business Profile and Bing Places, with the same name, address, phone and hours as the site.
- Discussions. Forums and Q&A threads about your market can be read too. Take part as yourself, and only where you have something useful to add.
OpenAI also says it ranks results using several factors meant to surface relevant, reliable information, and that placement is not guaranteed.
How to test it
- Write 10 to 15 questions a buyer would ask: some without your name (“recommend a [service] in [city]”), some with it (“how much does [your company] charge”), and a few comparisons.
- Use a fresh chat each time. Turn memory off or use a logged-out session, since memory can change the search query.
- Ask from the country and city your buyers are in. A VPN or office network can shift the location ChatGPT assumes.
- Ask each question three times. Replies vary from run to run, so one answer is not a result.
- For every run, write down: was search used (citations shown or not), were you named, were you linked, who else was named, which sources were cited, were your facts right.
- Repeat the same list once a month and compare counts, not single replies.
Our test on aoe.kz
On October 6, 2026 we asked ChatGPT “recommend a marketing agency in Almaty” three times. AOE was named in all three runs. Almaty is our home city, where the team has worked since 2017.
The same site did less well in Google. Its AI Overviews cited aoe.kz for 0 of 17 tracked questions on September 22 and for 2 of 20 on October 6. ChatGPT did not start naming us more often in that period. Two small samples prove nothing about cause, but they show the channels can move apart, so we now count ChatGPT and Google separately.
Common mistakes
- Copying a “block all AI” robots.txt. It can block OAI-SearchBot along with the training bots. Read the rule before you paste it.
- Testing once, in your own account. Memory and location bend the result toward you.
- Asking ChatGPT whether your site is optimized. You get an opinion, not a measurement.
- Writing pages for a chatbot. Lists of questions with thin answers help no one. The same clear page serves Google, Bing and ChatGPT.
- Fixing facts in one place. An old price on a directory keeps showing up until it is corrected there too.
Turn memory off or use a logged-out session, since memory can change the search query.
Questions
Is ChatGPT SEO different from regular SEO?
Most of the groundwork is shared: crawlable pages, clear services, links and mentions. The differences are OpenAI’s own crawler, Bing alongside Google, and the need to test answers by hand, since there is no Search Console for ChatGPT.
Should we block GPTBot?
Only for a clear reason, such as paid content. Blocking it is a training decision. For search answers, the bot that matters is OAI-SearchBot.
How long does it take?
A robots.txt fix reaches OpenAI’s search systems in about a day. Being named more often depends on other sites mentioning you. In our own test, page edits alone did not raise how often ChatGPT named us.
Can you check this for us?
Yes. The free AI visibility check runs 10 buyer questions once each. The AI visibility audit runs 30 questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, three times each, and lists what to fix. Ongoing work is part of our AI search optimization service.
