How to Get Your Startup Recommended by ChatGPT and AI Search

The short answer

When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI features to recommend a product, the assistant usually runs web searches and cites pages that already rank. To be recommended, you need to be crawlable by their search bots, appear on the pages that rank for your category's "best X" and comparison queries, and state the same clear facts about your company everywhere. There is no special file or markup that guarantees a mention. It's mostly good SEO and third-party credibility, measured carefully.

How AI assistants find and cite companies

There are two ways an assistant can know about you: what the model learned in training, and what it finds when it searches the web for a specific question. For recommendation questions such as "best SOC 2 tool for startups", the second route matters most, because answers come with citations you can influence.

• ChatGPT: OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search, and that sites opted out of its OAI-SearchBot crawler won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Its FAQ also mentions results that come from third-party search providers.
• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: Google says both may use a "query fan-out" technique, running several related searches across subtopics to build an answer. There are no extra requirements beyond being indexed and eligible to show a snippet.
• Perplexity: PerplexityBot exists to surface and link websites in Perplexity's results, and Perplexity recommends allowing it in robots.txt.
• Claude: Anthropic's Claude-SearchBot indexes content for search. Anthropic says blocking it may reduce your visibility in user search results.

The practical point: assistants search short queries and lean on pages that already rank. If you don't show up in normal search results for your category, you're unlikely to show up in AI answers.

1. Make sure the bots can reach you

• Check robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot, Googlebot and Bingbot. OpenAI says robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours to take effect for its search.
• Know the difference between search bots and training bots. Blocking GPTBot or ClaudeBot keeps content out of model training; blocking the search bots keeps you out of answers. Many companies allow search and decide separately on training.
• Put important facts in HTML text, not in images, videos or scripts that load late.

2. Win the pages assistants read

For a recommendation, an assistant typically searches something like "best [category] for [audience]" or "[competitor] alternatives", then reads the top results. So you need to be on those pages.

• Publish your own comparison and "best X" content. Fair, specific comparisons ("X vs Y", "best X for Y", "Y alternatives") that include competitors honestly. One-sided pages rarely rank or get cited.
• Get onto other people's lists. Identify the articles that rank for your category and ask to be considered, with a short, factual pitch.
• Answer the question first. Open key pages with a two to four sentence direct answer. It's the part assistants quote most easily.
• Cover your use cases. Separate pages for each audience, integration and use case give assistants specific pages to cite for specific questions.

3. Keep your facts consistent everywhere

Assistants combine information from many sources. If your website says one thing, your LinkedIn page another and an old directory listing a third, you'll be described vaguely or wrongly.

• Write one short description of what you do and who it's for, and use it on your site, social profiles, review sites and directories.
• Keep founding details, location, customer names, integrations and pricing model consistent.
• Update or remove outdated listings and old press boilerplate.

4. Earn third-party mentions and reviews

Assistants are more confident recommending a company that other credible sources mention. Useful signals include:

• Reviews on the platforms your buyers check, such as G2 or Capterra for software and Clutch for agencies.
• Mentions in industry newsletters, podcasts and partner blogs.
• Features by the platforms you build on. Adopt AI, whose brand and Webflow site we built, was featured on the Webflow Blog, and the Refold AI site we designed was featured on Saaspo. That kind of independent mention counts for more than anything a company says about itself.
• Genuine community discussion, where you answer questions rather than promote.

5. Add schema and llms.txt, with realistic expectations

Schema: Organisation, WebSite, Product or SoftwareApplication, Article and BreadcrumbList markup help search engines understand your pages. Google says there is no special structured data needed for its AI features, and that markup should match the visible text on the page. Treat schema as hygiene, not a shortcut.

llms.txt: a proposal by Jeremy Howard, first published in 2024, for a markdown file at /llms.txt that summarises your site for AI agents. It's cheap to add and can help tools that read it, but it isn't an adopted standard. Google states you don't need to create AI text files or new machine-readable files to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Add one if you like; don't expect it to change recommendations on its own.

6. Measure your AI visibility

• Run a prompt panel. Write 10 to 20 questions your buyers would ask. Each month, ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Google, logged out where possible, and record whether you're mentioned and which pages are cited.
• Track referrals. ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to links it sends, so you can see that traffic in GA4. Also watch referrals from perplexity.ai, claude.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com.
• Use Bing Webmaster Tools. Its AI Performance report, in public preview, shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
• Read Search Console with care. Google includes AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic in the overall Web search type in Search Console, rather than in a separate report.

Expect slow, uneven progress. Answers vary between sessions and models, so look at trends over months, not single answers.

A simple checklist

• Search and AI search bots allowed in robots.txt.
• Key facts in plain text on your homepage and about page.
• At least one fair comparison and one "best X for Y" page for your category.
• A list of the ranking third-party pages you want to appear on.
• One consistent company description across every profile.
• Reviews on the platforms your buyers use.
• Basic schema in place and matching visible content.
• A monthly prompt panel and AI referral tracking in GA4.

FAQ

Can we pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

Not through organic answers. You can only improve the signals assistants rely on: crawlability, rankings, mentions and consistent facts.

Does llms.txt get us into AI answers?

Not on its own. It's a proposal, not a standard, and Google says it doesn't need AI text files. Rankings and mentions matter far more.

How long does it take to show up?

Robots.txt changes can be picked up within about a day, but earning rankings and mentions takes months. Track it monthly.

Should we block AI crawlers?

Blocking search bots removes you from AI answers. Decide on training bots separately; blocking them doesn't affect search visibility in the way blocking search bots does.

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