Key Takeaways
Start with access. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special optimization beyond a page that is indexed and eligible for a snippet. OpenAI says to allow OAI-SearchBot if you want to appear in ChatGPT search.
Put your content in the HTML. Vercel found that none of the major AI crawlers it tested render JavaScript, with Gemini and AppleBot as the exceptions.
Write pages an AI can quote. In a 2023 academic test, adding quotations raised visibility 41%, statistics 31%, and cited sources 27%. Keyword stuffing lowered it 8%.
Say who you're for. Semrush found that buyers notice a vendor that closely matches their use case (53%) and has a clear description (50%). Brand recognition got 7%.
Check monthly. Run the same prompts on five engines, log the answers, and fix by cause.
This is a working checklist. Do it in order. Each step says what to do, how to do it, and how to tell it worked. Plan on about a month.
One limit up front. Nobody outside the AI companies has a ranking formula, and the engines change. So we always recommend you follow what the companies and experts in the field are saying.
We've built our process on our experience in the market, as well as the latest information documented by Google and OpenAI, supported by research, or reported by buyers.
How do you let AI engines in?
Before anything else, make sure the crawlers can reach your pages and read them. Most of these checks take an afternoon.
Check your robots.txt
Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Look for two things: a User-agent: * rule followed by a blanket Disallow: /, and any rules aimed at specific AI bots. If you have no rule for a bot, it is allowed by default.
OpenAI runs separate crawlers. OAI-SearchBot surfaces sites in ChatGPT search, GPTBot gathers content that may be used for training, and the settings are independent of each other.
You can allow search and still block training. ChatGPT-User visits a page when a user asks for it, and robots.txt rules may not apply.
Here's a starting point:
# Lets ChatGPT search surface your pages
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
# Googlebot access supports Search eligibility
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /
# Training crawler: choose according to your policy
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /How to tell it worked: OpenAI says changes can take about 24 hours to take effect.
Important: This is an illustrative snippet, not a complete robots.txt file. Your site owner should review existing rules and decide whether to allow or block GPTBot before using it.
Check your firewall and CDN
A clean robots.txt doesn't help if your host's bot protection turns the crawlers away.
Ask whoever manages your hosting to confirm that your firewall or CDN isn't blocking AI crawlers. OpenAI asks site owners to allow its published IP ranges for OAI-SearchBot.
The list is at openai.com/searchbot.json.
Put your key content in the HTML
Vercel and MERJ found that none of the major AI crawlers they tested render JavaScript. That covered OpenAI's, Anthropic's, and Perplexity's bots. Gemini and AppleBot do render it. The data is from December 2024, so test your own pages.
The test takes one command. Replace the URL and the phrase with a sentence from your page:
curl -s https://yoursite.com/your-page | grep -i "a sentence from your page"No output means the text wasn't found in the HTML returned by that request. Content that only appears after a script runs is one possible cause.
The fix is server-side rendering or static pages for the pages that answer buyer questions: homepage, service pages, pricing, comparisons, and FAQs. Vercel's recommendation is to server-render critical content.
Confirm your pages are indexable and snippet-eligible
Open Search Console, paste your key URLs into URL Inspection, and look for noindex, nosnippet, or max-snippet:0.
Google also says you don't need special schema or AI text files for these features. If you use structured data, make sure it matches the visible text on the page.
How do you write pages an AI can quote?
Do this on your homepage and your top service page first. Then work outward.
Answer first, under a question heading
Make the H2 the question a buyer would type. Put the full answer in the first one to three sentences, so it makes sense if an AI lifts it out of the page. Then add detail.
Before:
Our approach to implementation is rooted in partnership and a deep understanding of your needs.
After:
How long does [product] take to implement? Most teams are live in [X] days. Implementation covers [three steps], and your team's time commitment is [Y] hours a week.
The "after" version has a question, a direct answer, and specifics. Fill in the brackets with your real numbers. This step is our own practice, and it follows how AI answers are built from short passages.
Say who you're for, in one sentence
Buyers reward fit and clarity. In the Semrush survey of 519 US B2B professionals, 53% said a vendor stood out when it closely matched their use case, and 50% when it had a clear, detailed description. 7% said brand recognition.
Template: [Company] is a [category] for [buyer type] at [company size or industry] who need to [outcome].
For example: "Acme is a contract-management platform for legal teams at mid-market manufacturers who need to cut review time."
Put your version at the top of your homepage, each service page, your About page, and your profiles. Never describe yourself with a vague label like "solutions provider."
Add numbers, sources, and quotes
A GEO paper tested content changes against a benchmark of queries. Against an unmodified baseline, adding quotations raised visibility by 41%, adding statistics by 31%, and citing sources by 27%.
Keyword stuffing lowered it by 8%.
The main experiments used a simulated engine, so read it as direction, not proof. The paper reported gains of up to 37% on Perplexity.
So here's what to do on each key page:
- Add two or three specific facts, each with a named source and a link.
- Add one quote from a named customer or expert.
- Cut repeated keywords. Say the thing once, clearly.
Build a page for each use case, industry, and buyer role
Buyers ask AI fit questions, such as "which tool works for a [role] at a [size] company?" A single generic services page can't answer them all.
- List the use cases, industries, and roles that show up in your sales calls.
- Pick the top three. Build one page for each.
- Give every page the same structure: who it's for, the problem, how it works, proof, and an FAQ.
- Link them from your main service page and from each other.
Add an FAQ block
Pull five to eight real questions from sales calls and support tickets. Write each answer in two to four sentences that stand on their own. Don't start an answer with "As mentioned above." If you add FAQ schema, it has to match the visible text exactly.
The Big Picture
The GEO checklist at a glance
Let engines in
- robots.txt allows search bots
- Firewall and CDN allow them
- Key content is in the HTML
- Pages are indexable
Write quotable pages
- Answer first under a question
- One clear who-it's-for line
- Numbers, sources, and quotes
- A page per use case
- FAQ block
Be talked about
- Complete review profiles
- Trade press and communities
- Matching descriptions everywhere
Check and repeat
- Run five prompt types monthly
- Log what AI says
- Fix by cause
- Track AI referrals
How do you get talked about outside your own site?
Ahrefs found that branded web mentions correlate with brand mentions in Google AI Overviews at 0.664, against 0.218 for backlinks. That's a correlation on one engine from 2025. Still, it points the same way as everything else: what other sites say about you counts.
Complete your review profiles
- Claim your profiles on the review sites your buyers use, such as G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius.
- Fill in every field. Use your one-sentence description from step 6 as the summary.
- Ask five recent customers for a review. Give them a prompt: "What problem did you solve, and what kind of team are you?" Specific reviews carry use-case language.
- Reply to every review, good or bad.
Earn mentions in trade press and communities
- List ten publications, podcasts, and communities your buyers read.
- Pitch a byline built on something original, such as a survey of your customers or an analysis of your own data.
- Ask to be included in "best of" and comparison articles in your category.
- Answer questions in the forums and communities where buyers ask them. Disclose who you work for. Never post as a fake customer.
This is slow, and will take some legwork, especially if you aren't well known in your market or industry. But it's absolutely possible, and many are looking for opportunities to feature other brands in their content. So start now.
Make every description match
AI engines read many sources and compare them. When they disagree, you get a muddled answer. Build a simple audit table:
| Where | Category label | One-line description | Key facts (pricing, size, location) | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homepage | ||||
| About page | ||||
| G2 and other review sites | ||||
| Crunchbase and directories | ||||
| Press boilerplate |
Choose one category label and one description. Update every row to match. For the kinds of mistakes AI makes about brands, read what ChatGPT says about your business when you aren't looking.
How do you check whether it's working?
Run the prompts monthly
Use five prompt types: category, alternative, comparison, fit, and brand. We list example prompts for each in how do buyers build a vendor shortlist with AI, and how do you get on it?
Run them on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok, in a fresh session each time. Answers vary run to run, so run each prompt twice.
Log the results:
| Date | Engine | Prompt | Named? | Described correctly? | Competitors named | Source cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | ||||||
| — | ||||||
| — |
Fix by cause
Use what the AI actually says to identify the next change rather than guessing.
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| You're not named | Crawlers can't reach you, or nothing marks you as a fit | Steps 1–4, then 6 and 8, then 10 and 11 |
| You're described wrong | Sources disagree or are out of date | Step 12, then fix the source the AI cites |
| You're named but not linked | No page on your site answers the question | Steps 5, 7, and 8 |
| A competitor beats you on comparisons | They have more proof or a clearer page | Build a comparison page, collect reviews, earn mentions |
| You're named for the wrong use case | Your who-it's-for line is vague | Step 6, then a use-case page |
Track the traffic
AI referrals are small today, so don't expect a spike. Tag chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, claude.ai, and copilot.microsoft.com as one channel, and watch branded search.
The full set of checks is in what happens to your website traffic when AI answers the question first?
What does a 30-day plan look like?
- Week 1: access and baseline. Steps 1 to 4. Run your first prompt log.
- Week 2: core pages. Steps 5 to 7 and 9 on your homepage and top service page.
- Week 3: proof and consistency. Steps 10 and 12.
- Week 4: expand and re-test. Draft one use-case page (step 8) and your outreach list (step 11). Re-run the prompts and compare to week 1.
Your Implementation Roadmap
A 30-day GEO plan
Access and baseline
Steps 1 to 4. Fix robots.txt, firewall, and HTML access. Run your first prompt log.
Core pages
Steps 5 to 7 and 9. Rewrite the homepage and top service page. Add an FAQ block.
Proof and consistency
Steps 10 and 12. Complete review profiles. Align every description.
Expand and re-test
Steps 8 and 11. Draft a use-case page and outreach list. Re-run prompts and compare results.
This is the work Today's Media Agency does. We help B2B tech companies get recommended in AI answers with our own proprietary tools, built by a team of experts who have been in this market a long time.
For the thinking behind it, see B2B marketing post-11/22: the four things you must know and do and Marketing Truth #4: The Cited Get the Business.
Want us to run the first check?
Start with the Free AI Visibility Audit. We check how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok describe your brand and which competitors they name beside you.
Want help working through the checklist? Book a strategy call and we'll map your first month.
Next in this series: what buyers who use AI trust when they fact-check it.
Free AI Visibility Audit
Does AI recommend your business?
See how five major AI platforms describe your brand and which competitors they recommend alongside you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is GEO?
Generative engine optimization is the work of making your brand easier for AI engines to find, understand, and recommend. It overlaps with SEO and adds answer-ready content, consistent descriptions, and proof from third parties.
Do I need special schema to appear in Google's AI Overviews?
No. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that no special schema.org structured data is needed. A page needs to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. If you use structured data, it should match the visible text on the page.
Should I block GPTBot?
That's your call, and it doesn't affect ChatGPT search. OpenAI says GPTBot is used to crawl content that may be used for training, while OAI-SearchBot surfaces sites in ChatGPT search, and each setting is independent of the others. Sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.
Does llms.txt help?
Google says you don't need new machine-readable files or AI text files to appear in its AI features. We haven't found independent evidence that llms.txt changes recommendations in other engines, so we don't put it on the checklist.
How long does GEO take to work?
Nobody can promise a timeline. Access fixes can take effect quickly. OpenAI says robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours. Content rewrites and third-party proof take longer, and answers vary from run to run. Track monthly and look for direction, not a single result.
Will these steps guarantee that AI recommends my company?
No. Nobody outside the AI companies has a formula, and the engines change. The checklist covers what is documented or supported by research: access, quotable content, clear descriptions, and proof from other sources.
Research and further reading
Sources
- Google Search Central — AI Features and Your Website
- OpenAI — Overview of OpenAI Crawlers
- Vercel and MERJ — The Rise of the AI Crawler (December 2024)
- Aggarwal et al. — GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv, 2023)
- Semrush — How AI Tools Shape the B2B Buying Process (July 2026)
- Ahrefs — AI Overview Brand Correlation Study (May 2025)
Editorial Transparency
Who worked on this post
Three AI tools were used in the creation of this blog post to support research, drafting, editing, and optimization. Final direction, review, and publishing were completed by the Today’s Media team.