ChatGPT visibility

ChatGPT SEO: free check and how-to

ChatGPT SEO is the work of getting ChatGPT to name your brand and cite your pages when buyers ask it for advice. Check where you stand: ask an OpenAI model the question your buyers ask and see whether the answer names your domain or cites your site, with Claude and Gemini answering alongside.

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OpenAI model via API

How it works

How the check reads an OpenAI answer

Ask a buyer question

Phrase it the way a customer would ask ChatGPT, such as “which accounting firm in Denver is best for startups”, and add your business name and website.

An OpenAI model answers

Rank.ai sends the question to GPT-4o mini through an API, with a web search tool that returns Google results, and asks Claude and Gemini models the same question in parallel.

See what it says about you

You see whether the answer names your business, how many times it cites your site, the pages it cited, and the start of the answer.

Why it matters

How ChatGPT SEO works

“ChatGPT SEO” means two things. Most often it means optimizing so ChatGPT recommends you: being one of the brands its answer names, and the page it links as a source. It also means using ChatGPT to do SEO work faster. This page covers both, starting with the one that wins customers.

This check shows how an OpenAI model answers one of those questions today. It isn’t the ChatGPT app: the app may use a different model and its own search, so its answer can differ. Treat the result as a read on how OpenAI’s models see your brand for that question, and ask the question in ChatGPT yourself to compare.

How ChatGPT finds and picks sources

ChatGPT answers from what its model learned in training, or it searches the web first. OpenAI says it “may search the web automatically when your question would benefit from current information”, and that it “typically rewrites your query into one or more targeted queries” (OpenAI Help Center). Questions about products, prices and local businesses usually trigger a search, and those are the questions buyers ask.

OAI-SearchBotis the crawler OpenAI uses to surface sites in ChatGPT search. Block it and your pages can’t be summarised there (OpenAI crawler docs).
GPTBot collects training data. Blocking it leaves ChatGPT search alone.
Search partnerssupply results to ChatGPT’s rewritten queries, so being indexed and ranking in web search still decides which pages it reads.

What ChatGPT’s answers look like, in numbers

Rank.ai asked an OpenAI model (GPT-4o mini, with web search on) 102 buyer questions tracked by 15 customer accounts, 3,930 times between May and October 2026 (Rank.ai analysis of 11,726 AI answers, May to October 2026):

Measure	ChatGPT
Answers that ran a web search	100%
Answers that named no business at all	61.0%
Businesses named per answer, on average	2.03
Answers with at least one citation	96.3%, with 6.34 citations on average
Answers that named the brand tracking the question	6.4%
Answers that cited that brand’s own site	3.7%
Share of citations going to Reddit, its most-cited site	3.74%
Average words: buyer question, then ChatGPT’s search	11.7, then 6.5

Two lessons. Being named is rare even for brands working on it, so one good answer proves little and rates over weeks matter. And ChatGPT searches a shorter phrase than the buyer types, so the page it reads is the one ranking for that short search. More figures are on our ChatGPT statistics page.

How to get ChatGPT to recommend you

List the 20 to 50 questions buyers ask before they choose, in their words.
Run each through the check above, or in ChatGPT with search on, and record who is named.
Allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt and at your CDN. The AI crawler checker tests it.
Publish one article per lost question that answers it in the first two sentences, with specifics.
Get named on the review sites, lists and threads ChatGPT cites for your questions.
Ask again every week or month and track how often you are named.

Each step, with examples, a test log and what to skip, is in our guide to how to rank in ChatGPT. For the research behind it, read the generative engine optimization guide.

Using ChatGPT for SEO work

ChatGPT is good at the repetitive parts of SEO: grouping, drafting and reformatting. It is poor at anything that needs live search data or facts it can’t see. Prompts that work, and the check a person still owes each one:

Task	Prompt	What you still check
Cluster keywords	Group these 300 keywords by search intent and topic. One row per keyword: keyword, cluster name, intent (informational, commercial, transactional, local).	Volumes and difficulty come from your keyword tool. ChatGPT has no search data of its own.
Draft a brief	Here are the H2s of the top 5 pages for [keyword]. List the subtopics they all cover, the ones only one covers, and questions none of them answer.	Read the top results yourself before you trust the summary.
Title tags and meta descriptions	Write 5 title tags under 60 characters and 5 meta descriptions under 155 characters for this page. Use the phrase [keyword] once, near the start.	Check length and truth. Test titles with a title tag checker.
Schema markup	Write Organization and FAQPage JSON-LD for this page. Use only facts that appear in the text below.	Validate it, and confirm every value is visible on the page.
FAQs from real questions	Here are the People also ask questions and 20 customer emails. Write the 8 questions buyers ask most, in their words, with a two-sentence answer each.	Answers need your real prices, policies and expertise.
Redirect maps and regex	Match each old URL to the closest new URL by topic and output a CSV. Flag anything with no good match.	Spot-check every high-traffic and high-link URL by hand.

Google’s position on AI-written pages is that “appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines” (Google Search Central). Mass-producing pages mainly to manipulate rankings is. Our guide to AI SEO tools compares the tools built for each of these jobs.

Tracking ChatGPT over time

This tool gives one reading. The free AI gradeasks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini 12 questions your customers ask and scores you out of 100. Rank.ai’s AI visibility plans ask every question you add once a day in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, show who is named in your place and which pages they read, then write and publish the articles for the questions you lose.

Free tools

AI visibility checker

Ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini one question and see whether each answer names your domain or cites your site.

AI search visibility checker

Check one search across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini in a single run.

LLM SEO tool

See how GPT, Claude and Gemini models answer a buyer question and whether they name or cite your site.

AI Overview checker

See whether Google shows an AI Overview for your keyword and whether it cites your site.

AI Overviews tracker

Check one keyword for an AI Overview now; Rank.ai's rank tracker notes an Overview on every keyword you track.

AI crawler checker

See which of 14 AI crawlers and tokens your robots.txt blocks, and which of them feed AI search.

All free tools

AI visibility checker, Google Business Profile audit, Maps rank checker, schema validator and more.

Frequently asked

How do I rank on ChatGPT?

Let OpenAI's search crawler (OAI-SearchBot) reach your site, publish pages that answer your buyers' exact questions in the first two sentences with specific facts, rank in web search for the short phrases ChatGPT searches, and get named on the review sites and lists it cites. Then ask the same questions on a schedule and track how often you are named.

Is this really checking ChatGPT?

It checks an OpenAI model through its API; it isn't the ChatGPT app. Rank.ai calls GPT-4o mini through an API gateway and gives it a web search tool that returns Google results, the same way the paid plans ask it. Its answer and sources can differ from what ChatGPT shows you, so treat it as a read on how OpenAI's models see your brand.

Does it tell me my rank inside ChatGPT's answer?

No. It doesn't rank brands inside the answer. It reports whether your business or domain is named, how many times your site is cited, and where your first citation sits in the list of sources.

Can ChatGPT do SEO for me?

It can do parts of the work: clustering keywords, drafting briefs, titles, meta descriptions, FAQs and schema. It has no search volume or ranking data of its own and can invent facts, so pair it with a keyword tool and check everything before you publish.

Why would ChatGPT's answer differ from Claude's or Gemini's?

Each model was trained differently, picks and reads sources in its own way, and knows different things about your brand. In this check all three search the same Google results, so a gap comes from the models themselves.

Can you pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

You can't buy a place in ChatGPT's answers through any SEO vendor, and OpenAI says placement in search is not guaranteed. ChatGPT ads are a separate, paid product sold by OpenAI. Be wary of anyone selling guaranteed placement in the answer itself.

Can I track this over time?

Yes, on a paid plan. Rank.ai asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini every question you add once a day and charts how often each names or cites you. Starter covers 5 AI questions to win, Growth 25 and Agency 100, each checked daily, with articles Rank.ai writes and publishes for the ones you lose.

See if AI names you when customers ask who’s best.

Enter your website. In about two minutes, Rank.ai asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini 12 questions your customers ask and grades how often they name you.

Your grade out of 100How often AI names you, cites your site, and how high it ranks you.
Who gets namedEvery competitor in the answers, most named first.
The pages AI readsThe sources behind each answer.
Three fixesWhat to fix first, with a brief for the first page.