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ChatGPT SEO: how to get your business found in ChatGPT

Published 26 October 2026.

This page is for owners asking "how can I get SEO for ChatGPT" and for anyone comparing an AI SEO company. NamedScan is not affiliated with OpenAI, and ChatGPT is a trademark of OpenAI.

How ChatGPT search finds a business

When web search is on, ChatGPT looks things up and writes an answer with linked sources. OpenAI documents a crawler called OAI-SearchBot that it uses to surface websites in ChatGPT search, and says sites that block it may not appear in search answers. So the first question is simple: can that crawler read your pages?

After that, ChatGPT tends to lean on the same kinds of sources a careful customer would: your own website, map and directory listings, review sites, local news and "best of" lists. If those sources agree about who you are, what you do and where you work, you are easier to name. If they disagree or say little, a competitor with clearer signals is the safer pick.

Seven step ChatGPT SEO plan

1. Allow OAI-SearchBot. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Make sure it does not disallow OAI-SearchBot, and that your firewall or CDN bot settings are not blocking it. GPTBot is the training crawler and is a separate choice.
2. Say the service and the city in plain words. Your home page title and first paragraph should read like the answer a customer wants, for example "Emergency plumber in Tampa, FL". Give each main service its own page, rendered as normal HTML text rather than only images or scripts.
3. Make your facts identical everywhere. Same business name, address, phone, hours and website on your site, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp and the directories for your trade. Mismatches create doubt.
4. Earn reviews and third party mentions. Ask happy customers for reviews that mention the job and the area. Get listed on the local roundups, associations and trade directories that show up as sources when you ask ChatGPT about your service.
5. Add structured data. LocalBusiness schema (or a more specific type) with name, address, phone, hours, area served and links to your profiles helps machines read the facts without guessing.
6. Answer real customer questions. Prices you are comfortable sharing, what a job involves, how fast you respond, which areas you cover. An FAQ written in your customers' words gives search something specific to quote.
7. Recheck on a schedule. Run the same prompts every month and note what changed. Fix the gap that matters most first.

How to measure ChatGPT SEO

Ask as a customer, never with your business name, in a fresh chat, with your city in the question and web search on. Repeat each prompt about three times, because answers vary. Record whether you were named, mentioned or missing, who was named instead and which sources were cited. The cited sources are your to do list: they show where ChatGPT is looking. The step by step method and a log you can copy are on does ChatGPT recommend my business, and the fixes are explained in the guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT.

What to ask an AI SEO company

If you would rather hire help, these questions separate real work from buzzwords:

• Will you show me a dated baseline from real ChatGPT answers before you start?
• Which prompts will you track, and do you repeat each one so one lucky answer does not count as a win?
• Which specific fixes will you make: crawler access, pages, listings, schema, reviews?
• Do you record the sources ChatGPT cites, and target those?
• Do you promise rankings or recommendations? (The honest answer is no.)
• Can I cancel anytime and keep the changes made to my site and listings?

See where you stand for free

NamedScan asks ChatGPT, with live web search, the questions your customers ask, and shows whether you are recommended, mentioned or missing and who is named instead. The free preview runs three customer questions and needs no card.

ChatGPT SEO FAQ

What is ChatGPT SEO?

ChatGPT SEO is the work of making your business easy for ChatGPT search to find, understand and trust, so it can be named when a customer asks for a business like yours. It overlaps with normal SEO: crawlable pages, clear facts, consistent listings and reviews on sites that search can read.

How can I get SEO for ChatGPT?

Start with the seven steps on this page: let OAI-SearchBot crawl your site, put your service and city in plain words on your pages, keep your name, address and phone identical everywhere, earn reviews and mentions on sites ChatGPT cites, add structured data, answer real customer questions, and recheck with the same prompts each month. You can do it yourself or hire an AI SEO company.

Is ChatGPT SEO different from Google SEO?

Much of the groundwork is the same. The difference is how you measure it. There is no ranking position in ChatGPT, so you track whether you are named, mentioned or missing across repeated customer prompts, and which sources ChatGPT cites when it answers.

Can an AI SEO company guarantee ChatGPT will recommend me?

No. Nobody controls ChatGPT's answers, and the same question can get a different answer the next time. Treat any guarantee as a warning sign. A good provider shows you a baseline, the fixes it made and a dated rescan.

How long does ChatGPT SEO take?

Crawl and page fixes can be picked up as soon as ChatGPT search reads the page again, but reviews, listings and mentions on other sites build over weeks and months. Measure monthly with the same prompts so you can see the trend.

Do I need to block or allow GPTBot?

They are different crawlers. OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface sites in ChatGPT search results, and GPTBot is used for training. You can allow OAI-SearchBot and still choose whether to allow GPTBot.

Sources

• Overview of OpenAI crawlers, OpenAI. Describes OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search) and GPTBot (training).