What is ChatGPT SEO?
ChatGPT SEO is the practice of optimizing your brand and content to be recommended, mentioned, and accurately represented when users ask ChatGPT questions related to your industry or products.
As ChatGPT becomes a go-to source for recommendations, reviews, and information, brands that master ChatGPT SEO will capture significant mindshare and traffic.
- Appear when users ask 'What is the best...'
- Get cited as a trusted source in responses
- Ensure accurate brand representation
- Outrank competitors in AI recommendations
ChatGPT Query Examples
ChatGPT SEO Best Practices
Strategies to improve your brand's visibility and accuracy in ChatGPT responses.
Create Authoritative Content
ChatGPT sources from indexed web content. Create comprehensive, well-cited articles that establish your expertise and brand authority.
Build Brand Mentions
Earn mentions on authoritative sites, reviews, and comparison articles that ChatGPT is likely to reference.
Optimize for Questions
Structure content around the questions users ask ChatGPT about your industry. FAQs and how-to guides work well.
Ensure Accuracy
Keep brand information consistent across all platforms so ChatGPT has accurate data to reference.
Track Your ChatGPT Performance with Pranas
ChatGPT AI Score & Mention Rate
See exactly how often and how prominently ChatGPT mentions your brand in relevant queries.
Ranking Analysis
Track your position when ChatGPT lists or compares brands in your space.
Perception Tracking
Monitor how ChatGPT describes your brand attributes and sentiment.
Source Attribution
Discover which sources ChatGPT cites when mentioning your brand.
Gap Analysis
Find where ChatGPT's perception differs from your intended positioning.
Content Recommendations
Get AI-generated content suggestions to improve your ChatGPT presence.
Which crawler feeds which AI answer
Optimising for AI search starts with knowing which crawler each assistant depends on. Block the wrong user agent in robots.txt and you disappear from that surface entirely.
| AI surface | User agents to allow | What the crawler does | Practical implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User | Model training, search index, and live in-chat retrieval | Blocking the search agent removes you from ChatGPT answers even if training access is allowed |
| Gemini and Google AI Overviews | Google-Extended, GoogleOther | AI training crawl on top of the standard search index | Standard search indexing still applies; the AI opt-out is a separate control |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User | Index crawl plus live retrieval at answer time | Live retrieval means content changes can show up quickly |
| Claude | ClaudeBot, Claude-Web | Training crawl and live web retrieval | Both agents need to be allowed for full coverage |
| Copilot and other assistants | bingbot, plus assistant-specific agents | Retrieval from a general web index | Verify the site and submit a sitemap so the index stays current |
The Pranas AI Search Audit reports the allowed or blocked state of these agents from your live robots.txt.
robots.txt checklist
- Remove blanket Disallow rules copied from a template.
- Decide training access and retrieval access separately.
- Confirm no path prefix hides your product or docs pages.
- Reference your sitemap from robots.txt.
After you change access
- Flush any CDN cache so crawlers see the new file.
- Re-run the audit to confirm every agent reads as allowed.
- Re-run the same AI Scan prompt set to measure the effect.
- Expect retrieval-based surfaces to update before training-based ones.