AI search optimization: getting named by ChatGPT and Google's AI

Old East Brick

AI search optimization, also called AEO or GEO, is the work of making your site easy for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews to find, read and quote when someone asks a question. It rests on the same foundations as SEO: pages the engines can crawl and index, answers stated plainly near the top, and facts that match everywhere they appear.

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What an assistant needs before it can name you

When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity who to hire, the assistant searches the web, reads a handful of pages and writes a summary of them. ChatGPT's search uses OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, and sometimes sends queries to partner search providers; OpenAI lists Microsoft among them and names Bing directly for its Enterprise and Edu plans. Google's AI Overviews draw on Google's own index. If the crawlers are blocked from reading your site, or Google has not indexed it, you cannot be quoted however good the page is.

Pages that answer the question near the top, give specifics and match what other sources say about you are easier for any reader, human or machine, to quote.

What the work actually involves

It starts with a free check: I ask the assistants the questions your customers ask, and note whether you are named and what they say about you. The rest is fixing what that turns up.

Confirm the search and user-fetch crawlers, OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot, can reach the site, and that the host or CDN is not blocking OpenAI's published search-crawler IP addresses, since some builders and security plugins block crawlers by default
Get the site into Bing as well as Google, and notify both when pages change
Rewrite the key pages answer-first: a short, plain answer near the top, then the supporting detail
Add structured data for your business, services, prices and common questions
Make your name, location and contact details identical everywhere, including your Google Business Profile
Ask the assistants the same questions afterwards, so you see the difference rather than take it on trust

This site is built the way it describes

The service and answer pages on yxustudio.ca open with a short answer, carry FAQ structured data and a date saying when they were last checked, and the site's robots.txt explicitly lets the major AI crawlers in. AI search optimization is included in every build.

What nobody can promise you

No one can guarantee an assistant will recommend you. Its answers change from one run to the next and from one person to the next, and the companies do not publish how they choose sources. What is in your control is whether you are readable, verifiable and quotable.

Anyone selling a guaranteed ChatGPT recommendation is selling the same thing as a guaranteed first place on Google: something they do not control.

What I check, and why

Do this	Why I do it
Let the AI crawlers in	A page it cannot read is a page it cannot quote
Be in Bing, not only Google	Copilot's web answers are grounded in Bing, and Microsoft is one of the search providers OpenAI lists for ChatGPT search.
Answer the question near the top	Plain, upfront answers are easier for anyone, human or assistant, to quote
Mark the business up with structured data	It states your hours, services and prices in a form software reads reliably. Google says it is not required for its AI features.
Keep your details identical everywhere	Customers and search engines see the same facts wherever they look.
Date every page	Google says its AI features retrieve relevant, up-to-date web pages, and dating a page tells readers and crawlers when it was last checked.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?

SEO is about ranking in the list of links. AEO, answer engine optimization, is about being the answer quoted at the top of a search or read out by a voice assistant. GEO, generative engine optimization, applies the same idea to assistants like ChatGPT that write a response. The work overlaps heavily: a page ready for AI answers is also a good SEO page.

Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend my business?

No. Assistant answers vary between runs and the companies do not publish how they pick sources. What I can do is make sure the engines can reach, read and verify your site, and show you what the assistants said before and after.

Do I need this if I already rank on Google?

Less than you might think, because the same pages feed both. It matters most if you rank but are never named in AI answers. Common things to check are a blocked crawler (OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT, PerplexityBot for Perplexity) and pages that bury the answer. Being listed in Bing is free and worth doing, since Microsoft is one of the search providers OpenAI lists.

How much does AI search optimization cost?

It is included in every website build. For a site built somewhere else, the work starts with a free check of what the assistants say about you now, and is quoted after that, the same way a repair is quoted after the audit.

Do you work with businesses outside London, Ontario?

Yes. The studio is in London, but AI search is not local work, and it is done the same way for a business anywhere in Canada.