How AI search finds your business

Some search tools now answer a question with a short written summary, and link to the websites the answer came from. You’ll see this in Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, in ChatGPT search, in Perplexity and in Microsoft Copilot.

When someone asks one of them for “a good plumber near me,” or about your business by name, the answer can come with links to the websites behind it. So the question for a business owner is a practical one: what do these tools read, and does it say the right things about you?

Each of these companies describes its own tool in plain terms:

• Google: to be shown as a supporting link in its AI features, a page must be “indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet,” and Google says there are “no additional requirements” to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode (Google Search Central).
• Microsoft Bing and Copilot: Bing’s webmaster guidelines say Bing and Copilot search experiences “rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search.”
• ChatGPT: OpenAI says its crawler OAI-SearchBot is used to show websites in ChatGPT’s search features, and that sites that opt out of it “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers” (OpenAI).
• Perplexity: Perplexity says its crawler, PerplexityBot, is designed to surface and link websites in its search results (Perplexity).

In other words, the plain steps that help you show up in search help here too.

A crawler is the program a search tool uses to read websites. Your site tells crawlers what they may read in a small file called robots.txt, at your own address followed by /robots.txt (for example yourbusiness.example/robots.txt).

Google recommends making sure crawling is allowed in robots.txt, and by any company that hosts or speeds up your site. Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot there too. If you’re not sure what yours says, ask your web person to check it.

Google recommends “making sure that important content is available in textual form.” Bing’s guidelines say images and video should support the text on a page, not be the only place the information is.

For a local business, that means writing out the things people ask about:

• your hours, including holiday hours
• the services you offer, and your prices if you share them
• the towns or neighborhoods you serve
• how to book, order or get in touch

If your menu, your price list or your hours only appear inside a photo or a flyer, put the same words on the page as text too.

Google’s list of recommendations includes checking that your Business Profile information is up to date. Bing says it checks the details owners send against what it finds across search engines, websites and social media, and recommends keeping your business name, address, phone number and website the same everywhere.

Our step-by-step guides cover the three big listings: Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business.

Bing’s own words: “Content should be created for users, not to manipulate ranking systems or trigger citations or AI responses.” Write for the people who will read your site.

Google says meeting its technical requirements doesn’t guarantee a page will be crawled, indexed or shown. Bing says plainly that search optimization “does not guarantee rankings or traffic,” and that optimizing for AI answers doesn’t guarantee your pages will be cited in them either.

So if anyone guarantees your business will be named in ChatGPT or in Google’s AI answers, be careful. What you can do is make your site and your listings clear, accurate and easy to read, and then check now and then what these tools say.

Try it yourself. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google about your kind of business in your town, and about your business by name. If an answer gets your hours, your services or your area wrong, the place to start is your own website and your listings.

Our SEO and AI-search audit checks what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews say about your business, and what’s missing or wrong.