AI products do not all pick sources the same way, but the pattern across them is consistent enough to act on. This guide covers what we would do, in order, for a small or mid-sized business.
1. Let the Right Crawlers In
Open your robots.txt. If you see blanket disallows, or named blocks for search-oriented bots, you may be invisible by choice.
- OAI-SearchBot powers ChatGPT's search results.
- PerplexityBot feeds Perplexity's index.
- Googlebot governs eligibility for AI Overviews and AI Mode; there is no separate opt-in.
- Bingbot matters because Microsoft's index supports Copilot and some ChatGPT retrieval.
- GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, CCBot relate to model training; allowing them is a separate decision from appearing in search answers.
You can see how we handle this in our own robots.txt.
2. Be Indexed Where the Answers Come From
Verify indexation in both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. A page that is not in the index is rarely cited. A noindex tag left over from staging is the most common avoidable cause.
3. Make Pages Citable
- Put the answer in the first one or two sentences under the heading.
- Mirror the question in your headings.
- Use tables for comparisons and cite sources for statistics.
- Show a real author and a real updated date.
- Add structured data that matches what is visible.
4. Earn Independent Mentions
This is where most small businesses are weakest, and where self-promotion backfires. Industry research reported in 2026 found that third-party "best of" lists make up a large share of the pages ChatGPT cites. One analysis of 26,283 ChatGPT source URLs across 750 prompts found that "best X" lists were the single largest page type at 43.8%. The lesson is not to write your own list. It is to deserve a place on other people's.
Genuine routes: customer reviews on the platforms your category uses, accurate directory profiles, local press, supplier and partner pages, and expert commentary for publications in your field. Skip link networks and fake ranking posts.
5. Keep Your Entity Consistent
Use the same business name, address, phone, description, and profile links everywhere. Inconsistency makes you harder to identify with confidence.
6. Measure Honestly
Pick 25 to 50 prompts a buyer would plausibly ask. Run them monthly on each platform. Record whether you are named, whether you are cited, and which sources appear. Expect variation and judge by trend. Separate AI referral traffic in GA4 where a referrer is available.
What About llms.txt?
It is cheap to publish and we have one, but Google has said site owners can ignore it for AI features and we have seen no reliable evidence that major AI products depend on it. Do the work above first.
Want this done for you? See AI search optimization, ChatGPT SEO, Perplexity SEO, and Google AI Overviews optimization, or request a free audit.