How ChatGPT finds websites
OpenAI's page on its crawlers is the only official document for site owners, and it is short. Its key sentence: "OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features." Sites that block it "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers", though they can still appear as plain navigational links.
OpenAI does not publish how ChatGPT chooses between the pages it finds. What follows is therefore what it documents, then what Google and Microsoft document for their own AI answers, which work the same way: a search, a selection of pages, a written answer with sources.
OpenAI's crawlers, and what to do with each
| Crawler | What it does | What we advise |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | Finds pages for ChatGPT's search answers | Allow it, or you will not be cited |
| GPTBot | Collects content that may train OpenAI's models | Your choice. Blocking it does not remove you from search |
| ChatGPT-User | Opens a page when a user asks ChatGPT to | Nothing to do. OpenAI says robots.txt rules "may not apply" to it and that it does not decide search inclusion |
| OAI-AdsBot | Checks pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT | Only concerns advertisers |
OpenAI states that "Each setting is independent of the others". A business that wants to appear in ChatGPT search without feeding model training can write this in its robots.txt:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBotAllow: /User-agent: GPTBotDisallow: /
OpenAI says a change to robots.txt takes about 24 hours to reach its search systems. Check your firewall too: some hosts and security services block unknown crawlers by default, and OpenAI recommends allowing requests from its published IP ranges.
What makes a page more likely to be cited
- The answer in the first lines. Microsoft's guidance for AI answers notes that assistants can lift a direct answer to a direct question "word for word".
- Facts in text. Price ranges, opening hours, delays, the areas you serve. Information that exists only in images, PDFs or hidden tabs is the first thing a system misses.
- The same details everywhere. When your site, your Business Profile and your directory profiles disagree, an answer may repeat the wrong one.
- Mentions on trusted sites. Directories of your sector, the press, partners. In our study of 70 Google searches, directories held places on 27 of the 46 agency searches, and assistants read those pages too.
- First-hand content. Figures, examples and experience that a summary cannot find on ten other sites.
Using ChatGPT search for a business in Morocco
ChatGPT is the first source of visits from AI assistants in Morocco, but not by much: 47.7% against 40.4% for Gemini in October 2026, by Statcounter's count. Your customers ask it in French, Arabic, English and darija.
- Ask it what your customers ask. In each language, with the city and the service. Note the sites ChatGPT links.
- Look at who it cites. If it links directories or platforms rather than businesses, your profile on those sites matters as much as your own pages.
- Answer the question it could not. Where the answer is vague or wrong about your sector, a clear page on your site is the source it lacked.
- Check the door. Make sure OAI-SearchBot can read your site.
Products and ads in ChatGPT
OpenAI has two programmes that are not organic search. Shops can send product feeds so ChatGPT can index their catalogue, open for now to "approved partners" who apply at chatgpt.com/merchants. And ChatGPT carries ads: OpenAI documents a crawler, OAI-AdsBot, that checks pages "submitted as ads on ChatGPT". Its documentation does not list the countries where ads run.
How to see whether ChatGPT cites you
OpenAI offers site owners no report. Three signals remain:
- Visits from chatgpt.com in Google Analytics: clicks on your links, not citations.
- ChatGPT-User in your server logs: each visit is ChatGPT opening one of your pages for a user.
- Paid tools such as Ahrefs Brand Radar or Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit, which ask ChatGPT sample questions and count the mentions. Useful for trends, but they are estimates from their questions, not your customers'.
Our guide to GEO and SEO places ChatGPT among the other assistants, and Google AI Mode covers the assistant that sends the second-largest share of AI visits in Morocco.
Sources