You’ve seen ChatGPT cite websites with clickable links as shown below. OpenAI uses its own crawlers (like OAI-SearchBot) and leans heavily on Bing’s index to decide which sites to feature. If your site isn’t properly set up, you’re likely missing out.
In this knowledgebase guide, we’ll walk you through the exact steps—from technical setup to content optimization—to help your website get discovered, cited, and indexed by ChatGPT Search.
1 Understanding ChatGPT Search Mechanics
First, let’s understand how this works.
When someone asks ChatGPT Search a question, it doesn’t just guess the answer. It pulls real-time information from the web, using a combination of Bing’s search index and OpenAI’s own web crawlers to deliver accurate, up-to-date answers. When it finds a trusted source, it often includes a clickable link back to that website.
To do this, OpenAI relies on three key crawlers:
- OAI-SearchBot – The main crawler used specifically for indexing websites for ChatGPT Search.
- ChatGPT-User – Handles real-time user queries by fetching live data to improve accuracy.
- GPTBot – Gathers data for AI training purposes (which you can choose to block without affecting your search visibility).
Now here’s the key part: for your website to show up in ChatGPT answers, two things must happen:
- Your site must be indexed by Bing
- Your content must be accessible to OAI-SearchBot
If either of these isn’t in place, your content may not appear in ChatGPT responses.
Now that you know how the system works, let’s walk through the exact steps to make your site indexable and visible.
2 Technical Setup for Indexing
This is the foundation of your visibility in ChatGPT Search. As we’ve covered, ChatGPT pulls data from both Bing and its crawlers. So your first step is ensuring your website is fully accessible to both. Here’s how:
2.1 Configure Your Robots.txt
Your robots.txt file is the primary way to direct search crawlers on which parts of your site they should or shouldn’t index. You’ll need to set it up so it doesn’t block Bing or ChatGPT crawlers from accessing your content.
Here’s the kicker: When you set up Rank Math SEO on your website, it automatically adds a set of rules (including your sitemap) to your robots.txt file. By default, Rank Math never blocks any of these important crawlers from accessing your website.
You can check your website’s robots.txt configuration by navigating to Rank Math SEO → General Settings and then clicking the Edit robots.txt tab.
Unless you’ve already changed it, you’ll likely see this:
This configuration means no specific bot is blocked, so any crawler—including Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, etc, can access your website.
Now, if you want to prevent OpenAI from using your content for AI training, you can block GPTBot specifically without affecting your visibility in ChatGPT Search. Just add this to your robots.txt:
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /This won’t block OAI-SearchBot, which handles search indexing. It’s entirely up to you.
To avoid accidental issues, we recommend using our Robots.txt Tester and Validation tool to confirm that essential bots like OAI-SearchBot and Bingbot aren’t blocked.
For example, if you want to check whether OAI-SearchBot can access your site, just enter your website URL, set OAI-SearchBot as the user agent, and click the TEST button.
The results will show whether the bot is allowed. If everything’s set up correctly, you’ll see that it isn’t being blocked.
And keep in mind that any changes you make to your robots.txt file usually take about 24 hours to take effect.
2.2 Set Up Bing Indexing
Since ChatGPT Search depends heavily on Bing’s index, getting your website properly indexed by Bing is essential.
First, verify your website on Bing. This is straightforward with Rank Math SEO: In your Bing Webmaster Tools account, generate your verification HTML tag or ID.
Now, head to your WordPress dashboard → Rank Math SEO → General Settings → Webmaster Tools. Next, paste the code in the Bing Webmaster Tools field and save.
For more details on how to do this, refer to our guide here.
Once your site is verified, the next step is to submit your sitemap so Bing can start crawling and indexing your pages.
To find your sitemap, go to Rank Math SEO → Sitemap Settings. Copy your sitemap link from the General tab and submit it to Bing Webmaster Tools.
If your site is already verified in Google Search Console, you can also import your properties directly into Bing. This shortcut helps speed things up, and we’ve outlined how to do that in this guide.
After submission, monitor your crawl status. In Bing Webmaster Tools, go to Site Explorer → Crawl information. This report will show if pages are blocked, broken, or returning 404s—fix anything that could stop indexing.
You can also use the URL Inspection tool to check individual pages. Paste the URL, click Inspect, and review whether the page is indexed and accessible.
Once Bing picks up your content, ChatGPT is one step closer to showing your site in answers.
2.3 Optimize Site Structure and Performance
Bing and ChatGPT both rely on your site’s structure to crawl, understand, and index your content. If your pages are hard to reach or your site loads poorly, you’re likely to get skipped.
Keep your layout clean. Use a simple structure—homepage, categories, content, and connect your pages with meaningful internal links. This helps both crawlers and users move through your site easily.
Performance matters too. Slow load times, broken layouts, or poor mobile responsiveness can hurt your rankings and reduce your visibility in ChatGPT answers. Compress images, remove unnecessary scripts, and use a responsive design that works across all devices.
The goal is simple: make your site fast, organized, and easy to navigate for both humans and crawlers.
3 Content Optimization Strategies
Once your site is technically sound, it’s time to focus on what really gets cited—your content.
Here’s how to make your content stand out:
3.1 Create High-Quality, Relevant Content
If you want your content to be cited in ChatGPT Search, it must match what people are actually looking for and answer it better than what’s already out there.
Start with keyword research. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find real search queries with strong intent. Focus on terms that solve problems or answer specific questions, not just generic phrases.
Once you’ve got your topic, write with clarity and purpose. Use simple language, strong headlines, and content that gets to the point. Avoid filler and copied content—ChatGPT and Bing look for originality and usefulness.
If your content is outdated, vague, or overly optimized, it’s likely to be ignored. Keep it relevant, people-first, and fresh.
3.2 Use Natural Language and a Conversational Tone
ChatGPT is built on natural language. So if your content sounds stiff, robotic, or overloaded with jargon, it likely won’t connect or be cited.
Write naturally. Avoid cliché intros like “In today’s digital world.” Speak directly to your reader. Be clear, helpful, and concise. If you use AI writing tools, take time to rewrite or clean up the output so it actually sounds like you.
Formatting matters too. Short paragraphs, bullet points, and Q&A-style sections make your content easier to scan and easier for ChatGPT to pull clean answers from.
In short: talk like you’re helping someone, not writing for a textbook.
Tip: Before you hit publish, read your content out loud. If it sounds natural to you, it’ll likely sound natural to your audience—and ChatGPT too.
3.3 Implement Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data helps ChatGPT and Bing understand what your content is about. It adds context behind the scenes, making it easier for crawlers to identify your page type—whether it’s an article, FAQ, product, or something else.
With Rank Math, adding Schema is simple. Just make sure the Schema module is active. Then, open the post or page you want to optimize, go to the Rank Math meta box, click the Schema tab, and hit the Schema Generator button. You’ll see different types you can apply. Choose the one that fits your content best.
Once applied, it helps crawlers recognize your content format faster, boosting its visibility in both Bing search and ChatGPT results.
For more details, check out our guide on configuring schema markup with Rank Math.
4 Build Authority and Monitor Performance
Strong content and structure are a great start, but ChatGPT and Bing also pay attention to credibility. If your site has no authority, it’s less likely to be cited.
Here’s how to build trust and track your performance.
4.1 Earn Quality Backlinks & Mentions
Authority still matters. Bing uses backlinks as a ranking factor, and ChatGPT takes cues from sites mentioned often across the web.
Look for opportunities to get your content featured on reputable blogs, directories, or industry-related sites. If you have tools, guides, or product pages, submit them for reviews, mentions, or resource lists.
You can also join relevant forums and online communities. Offer helpful input and, where it makes sense, include a link to your content.
Even social mentions help. They may not count as direct backlinks, but they increase your brand’s visibility and engagement, both of which build trust.
The more your content is referenced in the right places, the more likely ChatGPT and Bing are to see it as worth citing.
4.2 Optimize Your Local SEO
If your business serves a specific location, local SEO can improve your chances of being mentioned in ChatGPT’s answers, especially for location-based queries.
Since ChatGPT pulls local data from Bing’s index, start by listing your business on Bing Places and Google Maps. Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone Number are consistent across all platforms.
You wanna try? Ask ChatGPT something like:
“Where can I find a laptop repair shop near Austin, Texas?”
If your listing is optimized correctly, ChatGPT may include your business in its response.
4.3 Monitor Bot Activity via Server Logs
If you want to know if ChatGPT is actually crawling your site. Check your server logs.
Most hosting dashboards include access to raw logs. Look for a section like Site Summary/Statistics/Logs in your hosting control panel.
If you manage multiple domains, select the right one, then open the Usage Log, as shown below.
Inside the log, press Ctrl+F and search for the word ‘bot’. You might see entries like:
- Bingbot
- OAI-SearchBot
If you see OAI-SearchBot in your logs, that’s a clear sign ChatGPT is crawling your content. If you don’t see it yet, review your robots.txt and sitemap setup to ensure it’s not being blocked. Remember, as long as you haven’t disallowed the bot, it can crawl your content when needed.
4.4 Monitor AI-Driven Traffic
Getting indexed is essential, but knowing whether ChatGPT is sending visitors to your site is also useful.
ChatGPT doesn’t drive traffic like traditional search engines, but users can click its source links. These visits often appear in analytics as low-referrer or direct traffic, so you’ll need to dig a bit.
In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition. From the dropdown, select Session source/medium.
If ChatGPT has sent traffic, you may see something like: chatgpt.com / referral.
To make it easier to spot, search for “gpt” in the report’s search bar. If nothing shows up yet, that’s okay—it just means ChatGPT hasn’t sent traffic yet.
To test it yourself, you can go to ChatGPT, ask it a question related to your content, and prompt it to reference or link to your site. If it does, click the link. Then come back to GA4 after 24 hours and check the same report—that visit should appear.
We hope you now understand what it takes to get your website indexed by ChatGPT Search.
Ensure your site is open to the right crawlers in your robots.txt, optimize your structure and content, and stay updated on OpenAI’s crawling behavior as AI search continues evolving.
Remember that AI platforms don’t always send traffic the same way search engines do. Answers are often self-contained. So, focus on being cited as a trusted source. That’s where the real value lies.
If you have any questions or need help with Rank Math, don’t hesitate to contact our dedicated support team. They’re available 24/7, 365 days a year.