Getting found in AI search: the questions we get asked

Usually one of five causes. AI crawlers are blocked by your robots.txt, firewall or CDN. Your pages describe you vaguely instead of answering specific questions. No trusted third-party sites mention you. Your business details differ across your site, Google Business Profile and directories. Or your site loads its text with JavaScript, so fetchers see an empty page. Our free audit checks all five.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation, also called GEO) is the work of becoming the source an AI assistant cites when it answers a question. SEO earns a place in a list of ten links; AEO earns a place in an answer that names two or three sources. The foundations overlap, but AEO rewards clarity, structure, specifics and third-party trust more than keywords.

It is cheap to add and there is no strong evidence it changes results yet. Add one, keep it accurate, and spend your real effort on crawler access, clear answer-first pages and consistent business details.

If you want to be cited, allow the search bots: OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), Claude-SearchBot (Claude), PerplexityBot and Googlebot. Training bots such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended are a separate decision you can make either way. Also check your hosting or CDN is not blocking bots silently; many sites are invisible without knowing it.

Be the clearest answer to that exact question on your own site, with a page that says who you are, where you are, what you offer and what it costs. Then make sure you are named for it on the sites AI already trusts: Google Business Profile, industry directories, review platforms and local lists.

AI repeats what it has read, so somewhere the wrong version still exists. Correct your About page, your Google Business Profile, your directory listings and any old pages that still rank. Add Organization structured data so machines can confirm the right facts. Changes show up in Perplexity within days and in ChatGPT and Google over weeks.

AI engines retrieve differently. Studies report that most of the pages ChatGPT cites are not in Google's top 100 for the same question. Ranking helps Google's own AI Overviews, but ChatGPT and Perplexity weigh direct answers and third-party mentions more heavily.

Perplexity and ChatGPT search read the live web, so technical and content fixes can show within days to a few weeks. Google AI Overviews and Gemini follow Google's index, which can take longer. Trust signals from directories and mentions build over months.

Not for the organic recommendation. Some AI products carry ads, but the answer itself is earned by being the clearest, most trusted source.

Write down twenty real questions your customers ask. Run them across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews each month and record whether you are named, how you are described, and who else is named. Track AI referrers (chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot) in GA4. Report with confidence ranges so small samples do not mislead you.

Yes, as a trust signal. Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage and Article markup let machines confirm who you are, where you are and what you offer. It will not rescue a vague page, but it makes a clear page easier to cite.

Usually yes, provided the text is in the HTML rather than injected by JavaScript and your host is not blocking bots. Our audit reports the text-to-code ratio and fetches your pages the way an AI crawler does.

Lead every page with a direct answer. Use headings written as questions. Include specifics: prices, locations, inclusions, timelines, who it is for. Name the author and keep a real About page. Show the date the page was last updated.

Yes. AI assistants lean on what other sites say about you more than on your own site. Consistent listings, reviews and mentions on sites AI already trusts are among the strongest signals.

Publish only what you choose, in your own words, with consent recorded. Separate citation bots from training bots so AI can cite you without learning from everything. Keep ownership of your platform and data. Songlines Digital builds every AI visibility project this way; nothing cultural is generated.

Citation bots and training bots are different user agents. You can allow the bots that cite you in answers and block the ones that train models. Blocking everything makes you invisible.

One foundation covers most of it. ChatGPT search and Perplexity read the live web; Gemini and Google AI Overviews use Google's index; Copilot uses Bing. So keep classic technical SEO in good shape and add answer-ready content and trust signals on top.