Lead-gen playbook
How to get found in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews
AI assistants recommend local businesses from what they can read: your website, your Google Business Profile, your listings and your reviews. To be found, let their search crawlers in, state your facts plainly on pages they can index, keep every listing matching, and earn recent reviews. Nobody can promise an assistant will name you.
Published · 7 min read · 7 sources · By the AOS Sites team
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The AI search playbook
7 steps, in order. The detail behind each one is below.
- Let the search crawlers inMake sure your robots.txt allows Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, and that no page you want found is set to noindex.
- Put your key facts in plain textServices, towns, hours, prices or how you quote, and how to reach you, written as text on the page, not only in images or PDFs.
- Open each page with a direct answerStart each page with one or two sentences that answer what the page is about, then the detail. Use the questions customers ask as headings.
- Write what only you knowAdd first-hand detail from your own jobs: what you see most, what it usually costs, what to do before you arrive. That's what makes a page worth citing.
- Make your listings match your siteYour Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp and Facebook should show the same name, address or area, phone, hours and website.
- Earn recent reviews and reply to themAsk every customer for a review with a direct link, and answer each one. Assistants read reviews; so do the people who ask them.
- Check what assistants say each monthAsk ChatGPT, Gemini and Google the questions your customers ask, note who gets named, and fix the gaps on your own pages.
How do ChatGPT and Google's AI choose a local business?
They search, then summarize. Google says its generative AI features are rooted in its core ranking systems: they retrieve relevant pages from the Search index and build an answer from them, with links to the pages that support it. They also run several related searches at once (Google calls it query fan-out) to fill in the answer.[1]
To be one of those supporting links, Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet. There are no additional requirements and no special optimizations for AI Overviews or AI Mode.[2]
The other assistants have their own crawlers. OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot to surface websites in ChatGPT's search features. Anthropic's Claude-SearchBot indexes pages to improve Claude's search results. Perplexity uses PerplexityBot to surface and link websites in its answers. Each of them can only cite what it was allowed to read.[3][4][5]
Can AI assistants read your website?
Check your robots.txt, the small file at yoursite.com/robots.txt that tells crawlers what they may read. A security setting or plugin can block crawlers without you noticing, so check rather than assume. If OAI-SearchBot is blocked, ChatGPT search can't read your pages; if Claude-SearchBot is blocked, Anthropic says your visibility in Claude's search results may drop.[3][4]
Training and search are separate. OpenAI uses GPTBot for training its models and OAI-SearchBot for search, and says each setting is independent: you can allow search while disallowing training. Blocking the training crawler doesn't remove you from ChatGPT search.[3]
| Assistant | Crawler to allow | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini in Search | Crawler to allow: Googlebot | Notes: Same crawler and index as normal Google Search |
| ChatGPT search | Crawler to allow: OAI-SearchBot | Notes: GPTBot is the separate training crawler |
| Claude | Crawler to allow: Claude-SearchBot | Notes: Blocking it may reduce visibility in Claude's search results |
| Perplexity | Crawler to allow: PerplexityBot | Notes: Perplexity recommends allowing it to appear in results |
Then make sure the words are really on the page. Google lists "making sure important content is available in textual form" among its best practices for AI features. A price list that only exists as a photo of a whiteboard can't be quoted.[2]
What should your pages say so an assistant can quote them?
An assistant answering "who fixes tankless water heaters in Marion?" needs a page that says, in words, that you fix tankless water heaters and that you work in Marion. That sounds obvious, yet many local sites say "quality plumbing solutions for the greater area" and nothing a machine, or a person, can act on.
| Vague | Quotable |
|---|---|
| Serving the greater metro area | Quotable: We work in Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha and Robins. |
| Competitive pricing | Quotable: Diagnostic visits are a flat fee; we quote the repair before we start. |
| Fast, reliable service | Quotable: Same-day visits on weekdays when you call before noon. |
| Experienced professionals | Quotable: Licensed in Iowa; the owner has run the business since 2009. |
Google's guide goes further: it asks for non-commodity content, meaning first-hand, expert takes that go beyond common knowledge, rather than "7 tips" anyone could write. For a local business, that's your own experience: what you find on most jobs, what causes the problem, what a fair price looks like, what to do while waiting.[1]
Structure helps people and machines alike: a direct answer first, headings phrased as the questions customers ask, short paragraphs. Google notes there's no need to break content into tiny chunks; write for the reader, organized so it's easy to follow.[1]
Why do reviews and listings matter to AI answers?
Because assistants answer local questions from more than your website. Google's guidance for its AI features specifically mentions checking that your Business Profile information is up to date, and its generative AI guide says Business Profiles can help your business be visible in AI responses.[1][2]
Customers are already asking. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers, 45% said they had used ChatGPT or other generative AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% the year before, and 42% said they trust AI recommendations as much as traditional reviews.[6]
- Keep your name, address or service area, phone and hours identical on your site and every listing.
- Ask every customer for a review, and reply to each one (see the review playbook).
- Describe your services the same way everywhere, using the words customers use.
Which AI-search tactics can you ignore?
Google's own guide has a mythbusting section aimed at "AEO" and "GEO" advice. For Google Search, it says you can ignore:[1]
- llms.txt and other special AI files or markup: Google Search doesn't use them; they neither help nor hurt there.
- "Chunking" content into tiny pieces: Google's systems understand pages with several topics.
- Rewriting content just for AI: assistants understand synonyms, so you don't need every long-tail variation.
- Chasing inauthentic "mentions" around the web.
- Overfocusing on structured data: it isn't required for AI features, though it still helps for rich results.
Sources: [1]
Google also warns that creating pages for every variation of a search, mainly to manipulate rankings or AI responses, breaks its scaled content abuse spam policy. One honest page per real service beats fifty near-copies.[1]
Every AOS Sites site still has an llms.txt, because some AI tools outside Google read one and it costs nothing, but we don't sell it as a ranking factor. Our AI search explainer says the same.
How can you tell whether AI assistants mention you?
Start in Google Search Console. Google says its Generative AI performance report shows how your content performs in its generative AI features, and warns that no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems.[1][7]
Then ask, by hand, once a month. Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Google and type the questions your customers ask: "best emergency plumber in Marion", "who replaces tankless water heaters near Cedar Rapids". Note who is named and what the answer gets wrong about you. Each gap is a fact to add to your site or your profile.
On AOS Sites, every lead shows where the person found you, with AI assistants as their own source, and AI visibility shows which AI crawlers have actually read which pages of your live site. See which AI crawlers have read your site.