To get recommended by ChatGPT, publish a page on your own site that answers each question your customers ask, and make sure ChatGPT can read it. Then ask those questions again to see whether the answers changed.
ChatGPT names businesses it can find and read, and that its sources describe as a fit for the question. You cannot edit what it learned in training. You can make sure the web holds a clear, readable answer that names you. The five steps below take you from "does it name me?" to "did my page change the answer?"
Why ChatGPT names some businesses and not others
ChatGPT answers in two ways. It can search the web at answer time, read the pages it can fetch, and write from them. Or it can answer from what it learned in training, which is its memory. Many answers mix both.
Either way, it can only name you well when three things are true:
- A page answers the question. Plainly, near the top, in words close to the customer's.
- ChatGPT can read that page. Its visitors are allowed in, and the words are in the page itself.
- The facts agree across sources. Your site, your listings and other people's pages say the same thing about what you do.
How ChatGPT chooses which businesses to recommend covers the mechanism in more depth. The steps below turn it into work you can start this week.
How to get recommended by ChatGPT in five steps
1. List the questions your customers ask
Start with the moments right before a customer chooses. Those questions sound like this:
- "What is the best [your category] for [a need]?"
- "Who should I call for [a job] in [your city]?"
- "[Your business] or [a competitor]: which is better for [a need]?"
- "How much does [your service] cost?"
Take them from real conversations, not from your own vocabulary. Sales calls, emails, reviews and the search terms in your Search Console all show how customers phrase things. Keep the first list short enough to check by hand. You can grow it later.
2. Ask them and record who is named
Open a new chat for each question, so earlier messages do not steer the answer. Ask each question more than once, because answers vary from one asking to the next. For each answer, write down four things:
- whether it names you;
- which businesses it names instead, and in what order;
- the reason it gives for each one;
- whether it links a page, and whose.
Ask Claude and Gemini the same questions if your customers use them. A simple sheet is enough: one row per question, one column per asking. Does ChatGPT recommend your business? walks through this check with a ready-made list of questions.
The questions where you are missing, or where a rival is named first, are the questions you are losing. They are your work list.
3. Fix what stops AI reading your site
Before you write anything new, make sure ChatGPT can read what you already have. Check these five things:
- Settings that let AI visit your site. Your robots.txt file tells visiting bots what they may read. OpenAI's page on its crawlers, read on September 29, 2026, says OAI-SearchBot surfaces sites in ChatGPT search. A site that blocks it is not shown in ChatGPT search answers. The same page says ChatGPT-User may visit a page when someone asks ChatGPT a question, and GPTBot collects pages that may be used for training.
- Words AI can see on your pages. If your text only appears after scripts run, a visiting bot can receive an empty page. Serve the words in the page itself.
- A clear title, description and headline. Each page should say in one line what it is about.
- Labels that tell AI who you are. Structured data with your name, address, logo and prices helps an assistant match your site to your business.
- A map of your pages. A sitemap helps any visitor find your pricing, service and comparison pages.
If your settings block OpenAI's visitors today, groups like these let them in:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /Rankli's free AI check runs these checks on your site and lists the fixes in order, with no account needed. To see where you stand before you start, the free ChatGPT visibility checker asks ChatGPT three buyer questions and shows who it names.
4. Publish an answer for each question you are losing
Write one page per question you are losing. Each page needs five things:
- The question as the heading, in the customer's words.
- The answer first. One or two sentences that answer it on their own.
- Specific facts. What is included, a price range, the area you serve, who it suits and how fast you respond.
- Comparisons with dates. If the question compares you with rivals, state the facts, where you read them and when.
- Your name and a date. Say who you are, and when the page was last updated.
Here is what "the answer first" means in practice. Take the question "Who should I call to replace a water heater in north Austin?" A weak page opens with the history of the business. A strong page opens like this:
Call a licensed plumber who replaces both tank and tankless water heaters and serves your neighborhood. [Your business] replaces water heaters across north Austin, and the price includes removal of the old unit.
Everything an assistant needs to name you is in those two sentences: what you do, where, and one fact a customer weighs. The rest of the page can explain options, timing and what affects the price.
Publish it on your own site, where you control the facts, and link to it from related pages. Keep the facts identical to your pricing page and your listings elsewhere. When two sources disagree, an assistant has to pick one, and it may pick the wrong one.
5. Ask again at day 7 and 14
Publishing is only half the job. The other half is checking whether the answer moved. 7 and 14 days after each page goes live, ask its questions again. Use the same words, the same number of askings and the same assistants. Then compare how often you were named before and after.
If you are named more often, move on to the next question. If nothing moved, go back to steps 3 and 4. Can ChatGPT read the page? Does the answer come first? Do other sources say something different about you? Look at the pages the answer links to. They show what ChatGPT read instead of your page.
What not to do
Some moves waste time. Others make things worse.
- Do not block AI by accident. Security plugins and bot protection can turn away ChatGPT's visitors. Check your settings after every change.
- Do not hide the answer. Text inside images, or text that loads only after a click, is hard for a visiting bot to read. Put it in the page as plain text.
- Do not repeat a phrase instead of stating facts. An assistant needs the facts: what, where, how much and for whom.
- Do not let facts drift. A price on your site that differs from your listings gives the assistant two answers to choose from.
- Do not invent numbers or reviews. A made-up figure can be repeated back wrong, or contradicted by other sources.
- Do not judge from one answer. One answer is a single draw. Ask several times and count.
- Do not expect a date. No one controls when ChatGPT changes an answer. You control the page and the check.
What Rankli does at each step
Rankli runs these steps as one loop, every week.
- Ask. It asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions your customers ask, every week. Perplexity is asked too on Scale and Agency.
- See what you're losing. It shows each question where AI recommends someone else, and who it picks instead.
- Publish the answers. It writes an article aimed at each question you are losing, checks it, and publishes it to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify or another connected platform.
- Re-ask and show what moved. 7 and 14 days after each article goes live, it asks that article's questions again and shows before and after.
Beside the loop, the Fix list shows what stops AI reading your site, with the fixes in order. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and your first analysis runs when the trial starts. Plans, prices and limits are on the pricing page.
Questions
How do I know if ChatGPT recommends my business?
Ask it the questions your customers ask, several times each, in fresh chats, and record who it names. Rankli asks these questions every week on ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and shows who wins each one.
Does ChatGPT use my website to recommend me?
It can. When ChatGPT searches the web, it reads the pages it is allowed to fetch, including yours. Rankli's free AI check shows whether your site lets it in and whether it can read your homepage.
How long does it take to get recommended by ChatGPT?
There is no set time, because ChatGPT decides for itself when an answer changes. You control the page and the check, and Rankli asks each article's questions again 7 and 14 days after it goes live.
Do review sites and directories matter?
Yes. ChatGPT reads other people's pages as well as yours, so listings with correct, matching facts help it describe you. Rankli shows which pages each answer cites, so you can see which sources it reads.
Does the same work help with Claude and Gemini?
Yes. Claude and Gemini also answer from the web and from memory, so a clear, readable and consistent page helps with all three. Rankli asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini on every plan.