Why doesn’t ChatGPT recommend my business?

1. Its search is blocked from your site. ChatGPT’s search tool is called OAI-SearchBot, and OpenAI says sites that opt out of it are not shown in ChatGPT’s search answers. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt and look for OAI-SearchBot, or a rule that blocks every bot. Allow it, and OpenAI says the change takes about a day to be picked up. OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
2. Search engines haven’t indexed your pages. Google says a page has to be indexed and able to show a snippet before it can appear in its AI answers. Search Google for site: and your web address. If little comes up, add your site to Google Search Console, which Google says is free, and send it your list of pages. Google: AI features and your website Google: About Search Console
3. Your site doesn’t say what you do, and where. A home page with a logo and a phone number, or prices and services inside pictures, gives an AI nothing to quote. Write each service and each town you serve as text, on its own page.
4. Other sites say little about you. In BrightLocal’s study of 200,000 local AI searches, Google Business Profile listings made up 28.5% of all the sources cited, and 93% of the websites cited were businesses’ own. A thin profile and no reviews leave little to go on. BrightLocal: 200k local AI searches
5. Your details don’t match. A different name, phone or address on your site, your Google profile and your directory listings makes it harder to tell they are the same business. Use one version everywhere.
6. Your business details aren’t labelled. Structured data tells search engines your name, what you do and how to reach you. Google asks that it match what the page says, so label only what’s visible. Google: AI features and your website
7. It’s this answer, not you. The same study found that asking the same question again gave only 20 to 33% of the same businesses, and that a business named once came back in about half of later answers. Ask more than once before you decide. BrightLocal: 200k local AI searches

• Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. If it names OAI-SearchBot under Disallow, or says Disallow: / for every bot, that’s reason one.
• Search Google for site: and your web address. Count the pages that show.
• In a new chat, ask ChatGPT what a customer would: the best of your kind of business in your town. Ask three times, and note who it names and which pages it links.
• Look at your Google Business Profile as a stranger would: category, hours, photos, reviews.

Or let us look: our free check reads your site the way ChatGPT and Google do, in about 20 seconds, no sign-up. Check my site.