How to get your business mentioned by ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews

More and more people don’t "search on Google" anymore: they ask. "Who builds websites for law firms in Chicago?", "What’s a good B&B near the lake?" The answers come from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or the AI Overviews at the top of Google, and they cite a few sources. How do you become one of those sources? There’s less mystery to it than you might read.

What does Google say about AI Overviews?

Google has been explicit: there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimizations. To be a supporting link, a page simply has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet.

The best practices Google lists are the usual ones:

• allow your pages to be crawled (in the robots.txt file and in your hosting settings);
• make content reachable through internal links;
• offer a good page experience;
• keep important content in text form, supported by quality images and video;
• keep your Google Business Profile up to date;
• verify the site in Search Console, where traffic from AI features is included in the performance report.

Google also states that you don’t need special AI files, or any particular markup: structured data is useful when it matches the visible text, but it isn’t a requirement.

And how does ChatGPT find websites?

OpenAI uses different crawlers, each with its own purpose:

• OAI-SearchBot: makes pages appear in ChatGPT’s search results;
• GPTBot: collects content to train the models;
• ChatGPT-User: visits a page in real time when a user asks for it.

They can be managed separately in the robots.txt file: you can, for example, allow OAI-SearchBot and block GPTBot. If your site blocks every bot instead, or your hosting does it without telling you, ChatGPT can’t cite you. It’s worth checking.

What makes a page "citable" by AI engines?

The analyses published so far come mostly from companies in the field and should be read as trends, not laws. But they agree on a few points:

1. A direct answer up front. Pages that answer right away, in the first lines and at the start of each section, get picked up more often.
2. A clear structure. Headings that are real questions, short paragraphs, lists, tables, FAQs.
3. Specific claims. Numbers, dates, names, places: "we reply within 24 hours" is worth more than "we’re always available."
4. Cited sources. Content that cites reliable sources in turn comes across as more credible.
5. Freshness. Recent information with a visible date is favored, especially on Perplexity.
6. Consistency everywhere. The same name, address, services and reviews on your site, your Google profile and in directories help engines "trust" the information.

Do you need an llms.txt file?

Not for now. It’s a proposal, not a standard, and an industry study of about 300,000 domains found no correlation between having one and being cited by AI engines. Google, as we saw, explicitly says you don’t need AI-specific files. If someone sells it to you as the key to showing up in ChatGPT, be wary.

Where to start, in practice

• Check that you’re indexed on Google (if you aren’t, read why your website isn’t showing up on Google).
• Check your robots.txt: OAI-SearchBot and Googlebot must be able to get in.
• Rewrite your key pages so they immediately answer the questions clients actually ask: what you do, for whom, where, how long it takes, what working with you is like.
• Look after your Google profile and reviews, especially if you serve a local area: we cover it in local SEO.
• Publish useful, up-to-date content, signed and with sources.

Every site we build launches with these basics already in place: a readable structure, consistent structured data, speed, copy that answers real questions. It’s what we call SEO for Google and AI engines, and it’s included in every project.