Showing up in AI search: what works, from Google's and OpenAI's own pages

You asked ChatGPT who to call for what you do, in your suburb, and it named someone else. Fair enough to want that fixed.

Before anyone sells you a fix, read what the companies that make these tools have put in writing. I read their pages for website owners again on 2 October 2026, and this post is what they say that matters to a local business.

Do the AI companies say how they pick a business?

No. I read what Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic and Perplexity publish for website owners, and none of them says how its AI chooses one business over another. What they publish is who can be read, and a few plain habits.

Google is blunt about it. Its page for website owners says “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode”, and nothing special you need to do for them.1 AI Overviews are the written summaries at the top of a Google search, and AI Mode is the chat-style version.

Microsoft, which makes Copilot, says on its advertising blog that “there’s no secret strategy for being selected by AI systems”.2

What did my own test show?

That they name businesses, and that they don’t agree on which. On 2 October 2026 I asked ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google six questions a customer might ask, such as who’s a good plumber in Penrith, logged out, in a fresh chat each time.11 Copilot wanted me to sign in before it would answer, so it isn’t in the test, and Claude and Gemini weren’t part of it.

Asked who to call, the three services named businesses, not just tips on choosing. They didn’t agree: for the plumber question, Perplexity’s three names appeared in neither of the other two answers. The sources they linked were a mix of review and directory sites, government pages and the businesses’ own websites.

Then I asked what Get AI Working does. ChatGPT had my business right and my offer wrong: it quoted prices and a service name my website no longer shows, so it was working from an older copy of my site. Google’s AI Overview also described my business from my site, with a point taken from a different business.

The limits matter. Each question was asked once, from one browser, on one day, by someone not signed in. It doesn’t show why any business was named, or what the same question gets next week.

What Google says

Google’s position is that the ordinary work of being found on Google still applies to its AI answers.1 Its newer guide to AI search, updated 10 July 2026, lists what it calls hacks you can ignore for Google Search:3

• Special AI files, such as one called llms.txt. Google says Google Search “ignores them”, and that making one for other services does no harm.
• Chopping your pages into small pieces for AI to read. Google says there’s no requirement to.
• Rewriting your pages just for AI.
• Chasing fake mentions of your business around the web.
• Special code: Google says there’s “no special schema.org markup you need to add”. Schema is code that labels what’s on a page for machines.

What Google does ask for:

• Your page in its index, the list of pages Google has read. A page has to be there to be shown as a link in an AI Overview or AI Mode.1
• Nothing stopping it reading your site: “Ensuring that crawling is allowed in robots.txt, and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure”.1 Robots.txt is a small file on your website that tells search programs what they may read; a CDN is a service some websites use to deliver pages faster.
• The important things in words: “Making sure that important content is available in textual form”.1
• Your Google listing up to date: “Checking that your Merchant Center and Business Profile information is up-to-date”.1 The newer guide says a Business Profile “can help your products and services to be visible in both AI responses and other Google Search results”.3

For Gemini, Google’s AI assistant app, Google’s crawler page names a setting called Google-Extended. It lets a website owner decide whether Google may use the site’s pages to train Gemini and to ground its answers, meaning feed it facts from Google’s search index while it writes a reply.4 Google says the setting “does not impact a site’s inclusion in Google Search”.4

What OpenAI says

OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, says “Any public website can appear in ChatGPT search”.5 Its instruction to website owners is to “make sure you aren’t blocking OAI-SearchBot”, the program ChatGPT’s search uses to read websites.5

Its crawler page spells out what happens if you do: “Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though can still appear as navigational links”.6 A separate program, GPTBot, collects pages to train OpenAI’s AI, and OpenAI says you can block that one and still allow the search one.6

OpenAI also says ChatGPT tags the links it sends people through, so your website’s visitor reports, such as Google Analytics, can show who arrived from ChatGPT.5

What Microsoft says, for Copilot

Microsoft’s blog describes Copilot as one of the services “Powered by Bing’s search index”.2 So for Copilot, the first question is whether Bing has read your site.

The same post lists habits it says help: clear headings, questions with direct answers, lists, and key details in words rather than only in pictures or PDFs.2 It also recommends schema, the labelling code Google says it doesn’t need for its AI answers.23 That two companies running search engines give different advice on the same point is worth knowing before anyone tells you there’s one right way.

Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft’s free dashboard for website owners, now has an AI Performance report that counts the times your pages are cited as sources in Copilot’s answers.7

What Anthropic and Perplexity say

Anthropic, which makes Claude, publishes how its programs read the web, written for owners who want to block them.8 It does say that blocking Claude-SearchBot “may reduce your site’s visibility and accuracy in user search results”.8 I found nothing on that page about how Claude picks a business.

Perplexity’s page says “To ensure your site appears in search results, we recommend allowing PerplexityBot”.9 That’s the one line on that page about being included.

What works, then?

Six steps, each from those pages or from my test. None of them promises you’ll be named, and nobody can promise that, including me.

Step one: let them read your website

Type your website’s address with /robots.txt on the end into your browser. Look for “Disallow: /” under OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot, or under an asterisk (*), which means every program.

If you find one, or anything that blocks Google or Bing, ask whoever built your site why it’s there. Ask them too whether your hosting (the company that keeps your website online) blocks these programs, because Google names the hosting as well as the file.1

Step two: check Google and Bing have your site

Search Google for site:yourwebsite.com.au, using your own address, then do the same on Bing. Google says a page has to be in its index to be linked from its AI answers,1 and Microsoft says Copilot runs on Bing’s index.2

If nothing comes up, the free dashboards for getting a site read are Google’s Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Step three: answer what customers ask, in words

Give each question a customer asks before they ring you its own plain answer on your site: what you do, which suburbs you cover, your hours, and what changes the price. A vet’s site that says in words which suburbs it serves, whether it takes after-hours emergencies and what a first visit involves gives an AI assistant something to read.

Put it in text on the page, not only in a photo of a flyer or a PDF.12

Step four: keep it current

My test caught ChatGPT describing my business from an older copy of my own website.11 So when your prices, services, hours or suburbs change, change the website and your Google listing the same day.

Step five: skip the tricks

Google says Google Search ignores llms.txt files, and that its AI needs no special code and no chopped-up pages.3 It also says to “Be wary of third-party tools that promise ranking success”, and that chasing fake mentions “isn’t as helpful as it might seem”.3

Step six: ask them yourself, monthly

Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini the question your customer would, such as “Who’s a good vet in Springwood?”. Write down who each one names and the date, and ask again next month.

One answer on one day tells you very little, as my own test showed. If you have a website, Search Console’s Generative AI performance report counts the times links to your pages appeared in Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode,10 and Bing Webmaster Tools does the same for Copilot.7

The map is its own job, and my post on why a business doesn’t show up on Google covers it.

Want it done for you?

On our menu this is the card Ask the AI about you: we ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot about you and your rivals each month, so you see what they say and watch it change. Start with one thing, or a bundle. If yours is different, we scope it.

Book a free hour. We’ll ask the AI assistants about your business together, on the call.