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How do you get cited by ChatGPT?

By Ben Tabas, Intrica Research · Updated

Answer

ChatGPT cites pages it can reach through its search crawler, so the first step is to allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt. OpenAI's crawler documentation, checked Oct. 28, 2026, says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers. Then publish pages that answer your buyers' questions directly, with named sources and figures.

What the research shows

  • A Google ranking does not predict a ChatGPT citation. Ahrefs' study of 15,000 prompts, published Aug. 11, 2025, found 8.0% of ChatGPT's in-text citations ranked in Google's top 10 for the same prompt.
  • Sources, quotes and statistics help. The GEO paper accepted to KDD 2024 found that adding cited sources, quotations and statistics raised a page's visibility in AI answers by 30% to 40% on its main metric.
  • Keyword stuffing does not help. The same paper found it gave little to no improvement, and on Perplexity it did 10% worse than the baseline.

Steps to earn citations

  1. Allow OAI-SearchBot and check that your CDN or firewall does not block it.
  2. List the questions buyers ask ChatGPT before they choose a vendor in your category.
  3. Give each question a page whose first two sentences answer it on their own.
  4. Add named, dated sources, quotes and your own figures to those pages.
  5. Find the third party sites ChatGPT already cites for those questions, and work to be covered on them.
  6. Rerun the questions on a schedule and record when ChatGPT cites you.

How to check whether it worked

Run the same questions in ChatGPT several times and count the runs that link to your pages. SparkToro's study, published Jan. 28, 2026, found ChatGPT rarely gives the same brand list twice, so one run tells you little.

ChatGPT leans on a company's own site

Intrica asked four AI engines whether 13 crypto exchanges are safe, Aug. 11 to 21, 2026. 52.1% of ChatGPT's sources were the exchange's own site, against 8.2% to 10.2% on Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.

See the data →

See whether ChatGPT names or cites your company today when buyers ask the questions you want to own.

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Sources

  1. Overview of OpenAI Crawlers · OpenAI, Oct. 28, 2026Supports: Checked Oct. 28, 2026, for OAI-SearchBot's role and the effect of opting out on ChatGPT search answers.
  2. Only 12% of AI Cited URLs Rank in Google's Top 10 for the Original Prompt · Ahrefs, Aug. 11, 2025Supports: 8.0% of ChatGPT's in-text citations ranked in Google's top 10 across 15,000 prompts.
  3. GEO: Generative Engine Optimization · Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024 (arXiv), June 28, 2024Supports: Cited sources, quotations and statistics raised visibility 30% to 40%, and keyword stuffing gave little to no gain.
  4. NEW Research: AIs are highly inconsistent when recommending brands or products; marketers should take care when tracking AI visibility · SparkToro, Jan. 28, 2026Supports: ChatGPT rarely returns the same brand list twice, so checks need repeated runs.

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