To show up in AI Overviews and ChatGPT answers, let each AI tool’s crawler reach your site, answer your buyers’ questions plainly near the top of your pages, back each answer with a fact only you have, and earn real mentions where these tools look. Then track it, because clicks alone won’t tell you.
In our last post, we covered the difference between SEO, GEO, and AEO. This one is the how-to. We’ll go platform by platform, then show you how to measure it, because measurement is the step most teams skip.
Before anything else: make sure the crawlers can get in
Every AI tool reads the web with its own crawler, and your robots.txt file decides who gets in. It takes five minutes to check, and it’s the first thing we look at for any client. These are the ones that matter:
- Googlebot. Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode run on its regular Search index. If you’re in Google Search, you’re eligible.
- OAI-SearchBot. This is OpenAI’s search crawler, and OpenAI recommends allowing it. Sites that block it are left out of ChatGPT’s search answers. GPTBot is a different crawler, used for training, so blocking GPTBot doesn’t keep you out of search.
- PerplexityBot. Perplexity’s crawler for its search index.
- Bingbot. Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries draw on Bing.
Check your hosting and security settings too. Google’s guidance asks site owners to make sure crawling is allowed by their CDN or hosting setup, and an aggressive bot-blocking setting at the host can quietly shut these crawlers out even when robots.txt looks fine.
How to show up in Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google is clear that its AI features are built on the same systems as regular Search. Its 2026 guide to generative AI in Search even says that optimizing for it is “still SEO.” So the work looks like this:
1. Get indexed, and stay indexed
Search Console’s Page indexing report shows which pages Google has and which it skipped. A page that isn’t indexed can’t be cited. If a page you care about is missing, check that it isn’t set to noindex and that other pages on your site link to it.
2. Answer the follow-up questions too
Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode can use “query fan-out,” running several related searches on subtopics before writing an answer. A page that answers the main question and the obvious next three has more chances to be pulled in than one that stops at the first.
3. Keep your Google Business Profile complete
Google names Business Profile (and Merchant Center, for products) as ways to help your services show up in AI responses. If you serve customers locally, this is one of the easiest wins on this list.
4. Skip the shortcuts
Google says you don’t need an llms.txt file, special schema, or content chopped into tiny chunks to appear. It also warns that chasing inauthentic mentions across the web isn’t as helpful as it might seem. Save that time for better answers.
How to show up in ChatGPT answers
OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search. Beyond letting OAI-SearchBot in (changes to robots.txt take about a day to register), two things matter most.
1. Be the most specific answer
AI tools cite pages that say something concrete. In our last post, we shared research that found adding sources, quotes, and statistics made a page up to 40% more visible in AI answers. A real number from your own work beats a paragraph of general advice every time. Buyers are checking, too: in its 2027 predictions, Forrester predicts two-thirds of B2B providers will lose deals because buyers can’t verify their claims.
2. Get talked about, not just linked to
Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands and found that how often a brand is mentioned across the web had a stronger correlation with appearing in Google’s AI Overviews (0.664) than its number of backlinks (0.218). It’s a correlation, not proof, and it was measured on Google, not ChatGPT. But it’s a good reason to earn real mentions: industry directories, partner pages, client stories, and local press.
What a citable answer looks like
Here’s the kind of rewrite we mean, using an agency page as the example. A lot of agency homepages open with a line like this:
“We’re a full-service agency passionate about delivering results for our clients.”
Nothing in that sentence answers a question or gives an AI tool anything to repeat. Compare it with this:
“A full-service agency plans and measures marketing across every channel. For Manildra Group USA, search visibility on the same 41 keywords went from 11.4% to 61.9% in 16 weeks.”
The second version defines the term in plain words, then backs it with a result nobody else can claim. That’s the pattern: answer first, prove it second. You can apply it to a service page, an FAQ, or the first paragraph of a blog post, and it works the same way for a person skimming the page as it does for an AI tool.
Perplexity and Copilot
Perplexity shows its sources right next to every answer, so being cited there is very visible. Make sure PerplexityBot is allowed, and the work above covers the rest.
For Copilot, start with Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit your sitemap, and turn on IndexNow so Bing hears about new and updated pages right away. Bing’s own advice for AI answers is practical: “Clear headings, tables, and FAQ sections help surface key information.”
How to tell if it’s working
This is where most AEO efforts fall apart. AI answers often don’t send a click. Pew Research found that people clicked a regular search result on 8% of Google visits when an AI summary appeared, compared with 15% when it didn’t. If you only watch traffic, you can be gaining ground and never see it.
Here’s what we use, and all of it is free:
Search Console’s generative AI report
It shows how often Google showed your pages in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, and device. Google finished rolling it out to every site on August 31, 2026. It reports appearances, not clicks.
Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report
Launched in preview in February 2026, it shows how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries, and which pages get cited.
Your analytics
ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends, so those visits are easy to spot. On our own site, AI assistants sent 28 visits from April 5 to October 4, 2026, and every AI visit in September came from ChatGPT. That’s small, and that’s the point: it’s the number that tells us whether the work is starting to land.
The questions themselves
Make a list of the 10 to 20 questions your buyers actually ask. Once a month, ask them in ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot, and write down who gets cited. It’s simple, and it’s the closest thing to seeing what your buyers see. We track this for clients in Rhythm℠, right next to their search rankings.
Where to start
If you only do three things this month, check robots.txt, rewrite the top of your five most important pages so they answer the question in the first two sentences, and set up the free reports above so you have a baseline. Everything else builds from there.
If you’d like a second set of eyes on where your brand shows up in AI answers today, we’d love to help. Start a conversation with us.
Sources
- OpenAI, “Overview of OpenAI Crawlers”: developers.openai.com/docs/bots
- OpenAI Help Center, ChatGPT search FAQ for publishers and developers: help.openai.com/en/articles/12627856
- Google Search Central, “AI features and your website” (updated December 10, 2025): developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- Google Search Central, “Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search” (2026): developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
- Google Search Console Help, “Generative AI performance report (Search)”: support.google.com/webmasters/answer/16984139
- Perplexity, PerplexityBot documentation: docs.perplexity.ai/docs/perplexitybot
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster Blog, “Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools” (February 10, 2026)
- Ahrefs, AI Overview brand correlation study of 75,000 brands (May 26, 2025, updated April 2026)
- Pew Research Center, “Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results” (July 22, 2025)
- Forrester, “Forrester’s 2027 B2B Go-To-Market Predictions” press release (October 21, 2026): forrester.com/press-newsroom/forresters-2027-b2b-go-to-market-predictions-ai-agents-will-influence-75-of-b2b-purchase-decisions/
- Rhycom GA4, AI Assistant channel, April 5 to October 4, 2026, and September 2026