# How to Get Cited by ChatGPT: 5 Steps to More Citations Get cited by ChatGPT through steps like choosing your prompts, allowing OAI-SearchBot, and tracking citations prompt by prompt. **Published:** November 4, 2026 **Author:** Boris Mustapic & Christine Skopec & Connor Lahey --- You ask ChatGPT a question about your industry, look at the sources it used to generate the answer, and see your competitors’ pages listed but not your own. You want your pages in that list, but the generic advice on how to get cited by AI doesn’t tell you what to change. In this guide, we’ll go over how to get your website cited by ChatGPT by making sure ChatGPT can access your pages, publishing pages that directly answer prompts, and keeping the pages about you that ChatGPT checks accurate. By the end, you’ll know how to increase your chances of getting ChatGPT citations. **Key takeaways** - ChatGPT can only cite pages its OAI-SearchBot crawler can reach. - Creating pages and sections that directly answer each prompt you're tracking increases the likelihood of ChatGPT citing you. - ChatGPT often checks a company’s own website when researching it, so inconsistent information across your website pages can cost you citations. - Answers change from run to run, so only tracking the same prompts over time can show whether your pages are actually being cited. ## How pages end up as citations in ChatGPT answers ChatGPT will only cite a page when it searches the web to answer a question. When it performs a search, ChatGPT rewrites the user’s question into one or more targeted search queries that it sends to search partners, and ranks the results on several factors. Some prompts never trigger a search, and ChatGPT instead provides an answer using its training data. You can learn more about [where ChatGPT gets its training data](https://www.searchable.com/blog/where-does-chatgpt-get-its-data) in our dedicated guide on the topic. For prompts that do trigger a search, ChatGPT performs what’s known as [query fan-out](https://www.searchable.com/blog/query-fan-out), where it rewrites your question into multiple search queries. For example, “what’s the best help desk software for a 20-person support team” might become “best help desk software small teams 2026,” “help desk software pricing per agent,” and “site:g2.com help desk software.” One important distinction to note before we go further: Getting cited and getting mentioned in ChatGPT are two different things. A [citation](https://www.searchable.com/glossary/ai-citations) is a linked source within the answer, while a [mention](https://www.searchable.com/blog/track-chatgpt-mentions) is a brand being mentioned in the text of an answer. You can get either without the other being present. ## How to get cited by ChatGPT Getting cited by ChatGPT takes five steps: choose the prompts you want to be cited for, make sure OAI-SearchBot can reach your pages, publish a page that answers each prompt directly, keep the pages ChatGPT checks about your business accurate, and track your citations prompt by prompt. ### Step 1: Choose the prompts you want ChatGPT to cite you for Start by [choosing the prompts](https://www.searchable.com/blog/which-prompts-to-track) you’d like ChatGPT to cite you for. Focus on questions people might ask about your brand, products, product category, or pricing. A good starting number to aim for is 15 prompts per core topic. You don’t have to guess what questions people are asking. Have a look at your existing data: - **Sales and support conversations:** What questions are prospects and customers asking on sales calls and in support tickets? - **Your search data:** Which search queries are already bringing people to your website? - **Your pricing and product pages:** What are claims a buyer would want to confirm before buying your product? Let’s use a fictional example, Pinecrest Physical Therapy in Denver. Some prompts they might want to track include “how much does physical therapy cost in Denver without insurance,” “does Pinecrest take Medicare,” and “best physical therapy clinic in Denver for runners.” Once you have a prompt list in place, check each prompt manually by running it through ChatGPT. Look at the answers and see which pages they cite. You can also click the three dots icon at the bottom of an answer and then select “**View sources**” to see a list of all the pages ChatGPT used to build the answer. Not all of these sources will be cited in the answer, though. ![ChatGPT answer about physical therapy costs in Denver with the Sources panel open beside it, listing the pages ChatGPT used](https://www.searchable.com/blog/how-to-get-cited-by-chatgpt-view-sources.webp) Answers can change from run to run, so you’ll want to check multiple times. ChatGPT can also use saved memories, so an answer (and the cited pages) might look different for someone else. ### Step 2: Let OAI-SearchBot crawl your pages In order to appear as a citation in ChatGPT search, your webpages need to be reachable by OpenAI’s search crawler, OAI-SearchBot. Here’s how to ensure that: - **Check robots.txt and your IP rules:** Look at your robots.txt file to confirm you’re not blocking OAI-SearchBot from accessing your site and make sure your content delivery network (CDN) or firewall can accept traffic from [OpenAI’s published IP addresses](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots). - **Be patient:** According to [OpenAI’s documentation](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots), it can take about 24 hours for its systems to adjust after you make changes to your robots.txt file. - **Keep key content in the HTML:** [An analysis of AI crawlers](https://vercel.com/blog/the-rise-of-the-ai-crawler) from December 17, 2024 found that “none of the major AI crawlers currently render JavaScript.” This means anything that can appear only after JavaScript runs is invisible to ChatGPT. Don’t confuse OAI-SearchBot with GPTBot, though. OpenAI’s GPTBot crawls the web to find content to train OpenAI’s models, but it’s independent of OAI-SearchBot. So you can block GPTBot if you don’t want your website’s content to be used to train AI models without affecting your ability to get cited in ChatGPT answers. **Tip:** You can use Searchable’s LLM Analytics feature to [see which AI crawlers visit your site](https://www.searchable.com/features/llm-analytics). In the “AI Crawlers” tab, you’ll be able to see a list of the bots crawling your website and how their activity splits into four categories: AI training, AI citations, AI assistant, and AI agent. ![Searchable LLM Analytics AI Crawlers tab with a Platforms table listing OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft and the bots each one runs](https://www.searchable.com/blog/how-to-get-cited-by-chatgpt-ai-crawlers.webp) ### Step 3: Publish a page or section that answers each prompt directly For each prompt you’re targeting, publish a page or page section that answers the prompt’s question directly and in full. Name the heading to mirror the prompt, and then answer the question in the first sentence. Whenever possible, try to back up your answer with verifiable facts, such as dates, prices, or statistics. Here’s an example of a weak vs. a strong way to answer the prompt “how much does physical therapy cost in Denver without insurance”: - **Weak opening:** "Physical therapy costs can vary widely depending on a range of factors, including your location, the type of treatment you need, and the experience of your therapist, so it's worth understanding what goes into pricing before choosing a clinic." - **Strong opening:** "A self-pay physical therapy session in Denver usually costs $85 to $150. At Pinecrest, an initial evaluation is $120 and each follow-up is $95, as of October 2026." The weak version is generic. It could sit on any clinic’s website, and it also doesn’t give ChatGPT anything specific to quote. The strong version could be lifted by ChatGPT in its entirety and still make sense without the surrounding context. It also provides concrete prices ChatGPT can cite. To create pages that have a high chance of getting cited, focus on answering the prompt’s question completely in the opening paragraph. Try to write the paragraph so it would make sense on its own if ChatGPT lifted it in its entirety and placed it in an answer. Your own pages can earn these citations. In August 2026, our research showed brand-owned pages [gained 80% in their share of ChatGPT citations](https://www.searchable.com/blog/chatgpt-research-depth-study) after ChatGPT changed how it searches, and own-domain citations rose for 85.9% across the 1,665 brands tracked in Searchable with enough data. Additionally, refresh your pages regularly and display a visible “last updated” date since [content freshness](https://www.searchable.com/blog/content-freshness-signals) matters for citations. ### Step 4: Keep the pages ChatGPT checks about you accurate To get cited by ChatGPT, you need to keep your website consistent and up-to-date. When ChatGPT researches a company, it often performs a search that’s limited to one website, and the most common target is the company’s own. According to [Searchable’s data](https://www.searchable.com/blog/chatgpt-research-depth-study) from August 2026, 12.2% of single-site searches in ChatGPT went to a brand’s own domain. Review and reputation sites like Trustpilot and G2 are among the other sites it searches this way. On your own website, all your pages (including your about, product, and pricing pages) need to tell a consistent story. If you list one starting price on your homepage and another one on your pricing page, ChatGPT won’t have a reliable fact to cite, and it might resort to citing a third-party page instead. ### Step 5: Track your ChatGPT citations prompt by prompt [Tracking ChatGPT](https://www.searchable.com/blog/best-chatgpt-tracking-tools) citations involves rerunning the same prompts and recording the URLs each answer cites every time since answers can change from run to run. You should track whether your pages are getting cited, and if they’re not, record which competitor pages are getting cited instead. You can track citations manually if you’re only dealing with a handful of prompts. But if you want to track hundreds of prompts, you’ll need a dedicated tool. [Searchable](https://www.searchable.com/) can track all your prompts, run them on a schedule, and record all the answers, mentions, and citations. To see prompts ChatGPT is citing your website for, go to “**AEO Insights**” > “[**Mentions & Citations**](https://www.searchable.com/features/aeo-insights/mentions-citations)”. From here, change the “**All Models**” drop-down to filter for ChatGPT citations. Scroll down to the “All responses” section and select “**Cited**” in the “**All responses**” drop-down to see prompts where your website is getting cited. ![Searchable Mentions & Citations tab showing a Cited Responses table of prompts where ChatGPT cited the brand as a source](https://www.searchable.com/blog/how-to-get-cited-by-chatgpt-cited-responses.webp) Visit the “[**Sources**](https://www.searchable.com/features/aeo-insights/sources)” tab to see all the URLs cited across all the prompts you’re tracking. ![Searchable Sources tab showing an All URLs table of pages cited in AI answers, with source type, content type, usage, and growth columns](https://www.searchable.com/blog/how-to-get-cited-by-chatgpt-sources.webp) Clicking the “**Show Gap Analysis**” button in this section will show you sources where your competitors are mentioned but you’re not, giving you a list of content gaps to target. ## Common reasons ChatGPT cites a competitor instead of you There are three main reasons why ChatGPT cites a competitor instead of you: OAI-SearchBot can’t reach your pages, none of your pages answers the exact question, or your pages offer conflicting information. | What you see | Likely cause | What to do | | :--------------------------------------------------------------- | :----------------------------------------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------- | | No OAI-SearchBot visits in your crawler logs | It’s blocked in robots.txt or at the CDN level | Allow OAI-SearchBot and OpenAI's IP ranges | | OAI-SearchBot visits arrive, but pages aren't cited | Key content is rendered by JavaScript | Move the answer into the HTML | | You’re cited for branded prompts, but never for category prompts | None of your pages answers the category question | Publish a section whose first sentence answers the question | | A review site is cited for your pricing | Your pricing page is unclear or out of date | Fix your pricing page and align your docs | ## Start getting cited by ChatGPT this week Pick 10 to 15 prompts and check them this week. If your brand isn’t getting cited, use the steps we outlined above to address this. You can use our [free AI visibility report](https://www.searchable.com/free-visibility-report) to see where you stand today. ## Frequently asked questions ### How long does it take to get cited by ChatGPT? No fixed timeline exists. The timing depends on whether ChatGPT’s search partners have discovered your page yet, whether ChatGPT performs a web search for your specific prompt, and how much the answers vary from one run to another. ### Does ranking first on Google guarantee ChatGPT citations? No. ChatGPT uses its own web crawler and third-party search providers to search the web, and ranks results based on its own set of factors. However, a page that’s easily discoverable by search engines is likely easier for ChatGPT to find, so good SEO can help. ### Can schema markup help you appear in ChatGPT answers? OpenAI’s help documentation for publishers doesn’t reference schema, and there’s no evidence it makes a difference in whether ChatGPT cites a page. Structured data does help keep your business information (such as opening hours or pricing) consistent and machine-readable, which should be helpful for any system that reads and analyzes your website. ### Do ChatGPT ads affect organic citations? OpenAI [explicitly states](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001047-ads-in-chatgpt) that ChatGPT ads don’t influence answers. The ads run on a system that’s separate from the chat model, and they’re clearly labeled as advertising. You can learn more about [ads in ChatGPT](https://www.searchable.com/blog/what-we-know-about-ads-in-chatgpt-february-2026) in our dedicated article on the topic. --- [Back to Blog](https://www.searchable.com/blog) | [Searchable Homepage](https://www.searchable.com)