How to appear in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity answers: what works for a small business website
More and more customers ask a chatbot rather than a search engine: “where can I get my bike repaired in Nantes?”, “how do I choose an accountant as a micro-entrepreneur?”. The good news: getting your website into those answers takes no secret tricks, and paying for a “guaranteed spot in ChatGPT” is pointless. What you need is to keep the door open to these services’ crawlers, write for people and keep your map listings in order. This guide is based on the official documentation from OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Google and Microsoft. Report names and crawler lists change, so check the links at the end.
The rules come from each service’s official documentation as of 15 October 2026. None of them guarantees a place in its answers — and nobody selling such a guarantee can deliver it either.
Where AI finds your website
ChatGPT
- Its own search crawler: OAI-SearchBot
- Also works with search partners, including Microsoft
Claude
- Its own search crawler: Claude-SearchBot
- Also uses Brave Search for web search
Perplexity
- Its own search crawler: PerplexityBot
- Links to its sources in every answer
Google and Copilot
- AI answers are built on the regular Google and Bing index
- If your site shows up in search, it is already a candidate
Step 1. Don’t shut the door
How to checkOpen yoursite.fr/robots.txt in your browser: it is the file that sets the rules for crawlers. Look for lines naming OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot, Googlebot, Bingbot, or a blanket ban: User-agent: * followed by Disallow: /. If you find such rules, your site is closed to those services. Where to edit it: on WordPress the file is often virtual — in Yoast SEO, go to “Tools” → “File editor”; on Wix, “Settings” → “SEO” → robots.txt.
A common trapPeople want to stop AI from “stealing content” and write a single rule that blocks both training and search. But these are different crawlers: at OpenAI, GPTBot is for training and OAI-SearchBot for search. Another trap is protection at your host or in a service such as Cloudflare: if it filters crawlers by IP address, OpenAI explicitly asks you to let its crawlers through. Cloudflare has a dedicated section for managing AI crawlers, and on new sites some of them are blocked by default — worth a look.
What to doDecide separately whether models may be trained on your texts (GPTBot) and whether your site may appear in answers (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot). You can block the first and allow the second: the settings are independent. Opting out of Gemini training (Google-Extended) has no effect on appearing in Google’s AI answers.
If nothing is blocked, you don’t need to add anything. The example below is only for when you want to stop OpenAI training its models on your texts but stay in ChatGPT search:
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /OpenAI and Perplexity pick up changes within about a day; for Google and Bing it varies.
ClaudeAnthropic, the company behind Claude, runs three crawlers. ClaudeBot collects content for model training, Claude-SearchBot crawls the web to improve search results, and Claude-User fetches pages when Claude answers a user’s question. Anthropic warns that blocking Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User may reduce your site’s visibility in Claude’s search results. Blocking ClaudeBot only keeps your texts out of training. Anthropic lists Brave Search among its web search subprocessors, so type your business name into search.brave.com and check that your site shows up.
Step 2. Ordinary SEO is AI optimisation
Google says it plainly: to appear in its AI answers you need no special tricks or markup — the page has to be indexed and eligible to show in search. Google treats the fashionable “GEO” and “AEO” as plain SEO. What works:
- Original content based on your experience: prices, lead times, areas you cover, examples of your work. Something no other site has stands a better chance of being quoted.
- Text, not a picture of text. A crawler can’t read a price list saved as a JPEG.
- Clear structure: headings, lists, tables, answers to common questions. Microsoft gives the same advice for Copilot.
- A site that loads fast and works well on a phone.
How to use AI-written copy without harming your site is covered in our guide “AI and your website”.
Step 3. Local businesses: get your map listings right
For “near me” questions, AI also relies on map listings. Google explicitly names a Google Business Profile listing as a way to show your services in its AI answers, and Microsoft says the same about Bing Places for Copilot. For restaurants, ChatGPT shows available tables through booking services such as OpenTable.
- Your Google listing is complete and up to date — see our guide.
- You have a free Bing Places listing (it can be imported from Google — check the categories after importing).
- Cafés and restaurants: online booking is switched on, if you take bookings.
- Your name, address and phone number are the same everywhere.
Step 4. Write sentences worth quoting
The easiest sentence to quote is one that answers the question directly. What helps:
- The answer first, details after: “Water heater replacement in Lyon: from €900, call-out within 48 hours.”
- Figures, examples, sources. Microsoft recommends giving data and citing your sources.
- The same facts everywhere — on your site, in your listings, on social media. Inconsistencies confuse people and machines alike.
- An update date and an author on pages about rules and prices. It is not an official “AI ranking factor”, but it helps readers trust you.
How to check whether AI can see you
- Google Search Console — Google’s free dashboard for site owners. The report on generative search features shows how many times your site appeared in Google’s AI answers; clicks from there are included in the usual “Performance” report. If the report is empty, check in the settings that your site isn’t excluded from generative features.
- Bing Webmaster Tools — the AI Performance report: how many times your site was cited in Copilot, and for which questions.
- Site analytics — visits from chatgpt.com, claude.ai and perplexity.ai in the traffic sources report. Some of these visits may be counted as “direct”, so the real figure is higher.
- Test it yourself — ask ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity the question a customer would ask, and look at the sources. ChatGPT and Perplexity work without logging in; Claude needs you to sign in.
What not to do
- Don’t pay for a “guaranteed spot in ChatGPT”. OpenAI states clearly that a place in its results is not guaranteed.
- Don’t waste time on llms.txt. It is an enthusiasts’ proposal, not a standard, and Google officially says it doesn’t use it.
- Don’t chop your texts into fragments or repeat your brand name in every sentence “for the AI” — Google calls these myths.
- Don’t block every crawler from your site out of fear of AI before deciding what exactly you want to prevent.
The limits
Even a perfect site won’t make it into every answer: a chatbot picks a handful of sources, and its choice changes from one question to the next. AI answers can be inaccurate — check what they say about your business and fix the original sources: your site and your listings. Most customers of a small business still come from ordinary search and maps. If those aren’t working, start with seven reasons your website gets no enquiries.
Checklist
- robots.txt doesn’t block OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot or Bingbot.
- Your host’s protection doesn’t block these crawlers.
- Prices, services and areas are on the site as text, not as images.
- Your Google Business Profile (how to fill it in) and Bing Places listings are complete and match your site.
- Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are set up.
- Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity a customer’s question and check the sources.
Want an outside view? In an audit I check both whether crawlers can reach your site and how your map listings look.
Information correct as of 15 October 2026. Sources: OpenAI on its crawlers, OpenAI help on searching with ChatGPT; Anthropic on its crawlers and its subprocessors; Perplexity on its crawlers; Google Search Central — AI features and your website, guide to generative search; Search Console help; Bing blog on AI Performance.
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