How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Business
The short answer
No one can make ChatGPT recommend a business, and OpenAI says placement in its search results is not guaranteed. What you can do is become eligible and easy to cite: let OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, reach your site, state your services, prices and locations in plain text, and earn honest mentions on the sites ChatGPT cites.
Key takeaways
- OpenAI says ChatGPT ranks search results on several factors it does not list, and that placement is not guaranteed.
- Your site is only eligible for ChatGPT search answers if OAI-SearchBot can crawl it.
- Blocking GPTBot, the training crawler, is a separate choice from allowing OAI-SearchBot.
- ChatGPT rewrites a question into its own search queries and may use the asker's location, so two people can get different answers.
- The sources ChatGPT cites for your kind of business show you where you need to be mentioned.
In this guide
This guide is for owners who asked ChatGPT about their own kind of business and saw competitors named. It covers how to get ChatGPT to recommend your business as far as anyone outside OpenAI can influence it: what OpenAI has said, what it has not, and eight steps. It is the hands-on companion to our AI search optimization service.
How does ChatGPT choose which businesses to recommend?
OpenAI has explained the outline and kept the detail private. This is what its help pages and crawler documentation say:
- ChatGPT does not search the web for every question. It may search automatically when a question would benefit from current information.
- When it searches, it usually rewrites the question into one or more search queries of its own, and may send follow-up queries after reading the first results.
- It sometimes works with other search providers. The help page links to the privacy policies of Microsoft and Shopify in that context.
- It may use an approximate location taken from the asker's IP address, and saved memories if that feature is on, when it rewrites the query.
- It ranks results using several factors meant to surface relevant, reliable information. Placement is not guaranteed.
OpenAI's help page on searching the web with ChatGPT says results are ranked using multiple factors, and that placement is not guaranteed.
Source1OpenAI Help Center
How to get ChatGPT to recommend your business: eight steps
None of these steps guarantees a recommendation. Together they remove the common reasons a business is left out.
Eight steps, in order
- See what ChatGPT says today
Open a new chat and ask the questions your customers ask, such as "who repairs flat roofs in Calgary" or "best online store for a small-space sofa". Note which businesses are named and open the sources it cites. Ask each question a few times, because answers vary with wording and location.
- Let OAI-SearchBot crawl your site
OpenAI says a site is eligible for ChatGPT search when OAI-SearchBot is allowed to crawl it and the host or content delivery network accepts traffic from OpenAI's published IP addresses. Check your robots.txt file, then ask whoever manages your hosting or firewall. OpenAI says a robots.txt change takes about 24 hours to take effect.
- Decide separately about GPTBot
GPTBot collects content that may be used to train OpenAI's models. OpenAI says the two settings are independent, so you can allow search and refuse training. Should you block AI crawlers? walks through the choice.
- Make sure Bing can find you
Because OpenAI's help page names Microsoft among its search providers, being properly indexed in Bing is a sensible, low-cost step. Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. OpenAI does not say how much any one provider contributes to an answer, so treat this as good housekeeping, not a lever.
- Put the facts on your own pages, in text
What you do, where you work, who you serve, what it costs or how you price, your opening hours and how to book. ChatGPT can only repeat what it can read. If your prices live in a PDF or your service area is only on a map image, write them out.
- Answer comparison questions honestly
A request for a recommendation is a comparison. Publish what a buyer needs to compare: who your service suits and who it does not, typical timelines, guarantees, and examples of finished work.
- Earn mentions where ChatGPT looks
The sources you opened in step one are the pages ChatGPT drew on. If they are directories, review sites or trade publications, get listed, reviewed or covered there honestly. Do not buy fake reviews or paid mentions dressed up as editorial.
- If you sell products, share your catalog
OpenAI says merchants can share a product feed so that products appear in ChatGPT's shopping results, that Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already connected, and that shopping is currently live in the United States. A feed is not required if ChatGPT already crawls your site, but OpenAI says it gives you more control over how products appear.
For step two, a robots.txt rule that allows OpenAI's search crawler looks like this:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
Repeat step one every month. If ChatGPT says something false about you, see what to do when AI gets your business wrong. To keep a record, use the method in how to track whether AI recommends your business.
How do you show up in ChatGPT as a local business?
Say where you work, in words, and keep your details the same everywhere. OpenAI says ChatGPT can use the asker's location to find local results, and may share that location with outside providers of local information such as business listings. It does not name those listing providers.
So the safe approach is the broad one. Name your city and the areas you serve on your site. Keep your name, address, phone number and hours identical on your website, your Google Business Profile, Bing Places and the main directories in your trade. For restaurants, OpenAI says reservation times can come from OpenTable, Resy or Yelp.
Can you rank in ChatGPT the way you rank on Google?
Not in the same sense. There is no fixed list of ten positions. ChatGPT writes a fresh answer each time from its own rewritten searches, and the answer can change with the asker's wording, location and saved memories. The OpenAI pages we checked do not describe a report for site owners like Google's Search Console.
That changes what "how to rank in ChatGPT" means. The useful question is how often you are named across a fixed set of customer questions, checked the same way each month. It is also a reason to be wary of anyone selling guaranteed placement in ChatGPT. For the wider picture, see GEO vs SEO vs AEO, and for Google's AI answers see how to show up in Google AI Overviews.
Related serviceWant someone to do this for you?
Our AI search optimization service checks what ChatGPT and Google's AI answers say about you, fixes access and facts, rebuilds key pages and tracks the change each month. A one-time AI Search Visibility Review starts from $1,500.
See the serviceQuestions owners ask about ChatGPT recommendations
How long does it take to show up in ChatGPT?
OpenAI gives one number: about 24 hours for a robots.txt change to reach its search systems. It publishes no timeline for being recommended. Fixing access and facts takes days. Earning mentions on other sites takes months.
Does blocking GPTBot stop ChatGPT from recommending my business?
Not by itself. GPTBot is the crawler for model training, and OAI-SearchBot is the one for search answers. OpenAI describes the two settings as independent. Check that a blanket rule in your robots.txt file or firewall is not blocking both.
Do I need an llms.txt file for ChatGPT?
OpenAI's crawler documentation does not say that ChatGPT search reads one. llms.txt is a proposal from 2024 for a file that helps AI agents use a website, and Google says its Search does not use such files. Adding one does no harm, but robots.txt access is what OpenAI asks for.
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor and not me?
Nobody outside OpenAI can give the exact reason. Check three things you can see: whether OAI-SearchBot can reach your site, whether the sources ChatGPT cites mention your competitor and not you, and whether your own pages state plainly what the question asked.
Does this also work for Perplexity and Copilot?
The approach carries over. Perplexity recommends allowing its crawler, PerplexityBot, so that sites can appear in its results. Microsoft says Copilot relies on the same crawling, indexing and ranking foundation as Bing, so Bing Webmaster Tools is the place to check access and see citations.
How much does it cost to have this done?
At Taskcover, a one-time AI Search Visibility Review starts from $1,500. Ongoing AI search optimization is part of the National SEO Growth System, from $4,500 a month. Our pricing page has the current figures.
See who ChatGPT names for your services
Send us your website and two or three questions your customers ask, and we will show you who gets named today and why.
The authors
Who wrote and checked this guide
Written by
Jamiez Nguyen
Founder & CEO
Jamiez Nguyen founded Taskcover and leads strategy and client growth. He started it in 2017 as a team doing search work behind the scenes for other agencies, then opened it to businesses in the USA, Canada and Australia.
Reviewed by
John Edward
CTO
John Edward leads the technical side of Taskcover: how sites are built, how fast they load, and how search engines read them.
Updated Fact-checked About the people at Taskcover
Sources
Where the facts in this guide come from
Facts last checked on October 12, 2026.
- 1Searching the web with ChatGPTOpenAI Help CenterChecked on October 12, 2026
- 2Overview of OpenAI CrawlersOpenAIChecked on October 12, 2026
- 3Power product discovery in ChatGPTOpenAIChecked on October 12, 2026
- 4Bing Webmaster GuidelinesMicrosoft BingChecked on October 12, 2026
- 5Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public PreviewMicrosoft Bing Webmaster BlogChecked on October 12, 2026
- 6Perplexity CrawlersPerplexityChecked on October 12, 2026
- 7The /llms.txt file, v2llmstxt.org (Jeremy Howard)Checked on October 12, 2026
- 8Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google SearchGoogle Search CentralChecked on October 12, 2026
