How to get ChatGPT to recommend your business: what works in 2026

More and more customers also ask an AI assistant “what's the best…”. The good news for small businesses is that the foundations are the same ones that work in search. The difference is where the evidence comes from: AI answers rely heavily on what other people say about you. Here is what works in 2026, based on OpenAI's and Google's documentation and large published studies of AI citations.

How ChatGPT decides what to mention

For many questions ChatGPT searches the web, reads a set of pages and writes an answer with citations. OpenAI states that “any public website can appear in ChatGPT search”, that placement is not guaranteed, and that ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers. There is no application, no paid tier and no shortcut.

Three facts shape everything that follows:

• Answers vary. Across nearly 3,000 test runs, SparkToro found less than a 1 in 100 chance of getting the same list of brands twice. Aim to appear often, not in one screenshot.
• Nobody outside OpenAI knows the exact index. OpenAI says it uses third-party search providers and partner content (its help page names Microsoft and Shopify), and 2026 reverse-engineering suggests an in-house index combined with other sources. Being well indexed in both Google and Bing is the safe course.
• Other people's words carry most weight. In Muck Rack's study of more than 25 million links cited by ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, earned media accounted for 84% of citations and paid or advertorial content for 0.3%.

Step 1: Make sure ChatGPT can reach your site

OpenAI runs separate crawlers, and they do different jobs. According to its crawler documentation:

A robots.txt that allows search while opting out of training looks like this:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Check your host and CDN too. OpenAI asks site owners to check that their hosting provider or CDN isn't blocking the IP addresses it publishes for its search crawler. Cloudflare, for example, now sorts AI bots into search, agent and training crawlers; search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot are allowed by default, but a manual block or firewall rule can still shut them out, so check your settings. Changes to robots.txt take about 24 hours to reach OpenAI's systems.

For Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode there is nothing extra to do: Google says there are “no additional requirements” and no special files or markup beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet. For Perplexity, allow PerplexityBot.

Step 2: Publish the pages AI is looking for

People ask AI assistants the same things they ask a knowledgeable friend: which option is best for their situation, whether a company is legit, how two products compare, what something costs. Give those questions a direct answer on your own site:

• A plain description of what you do, who it is for, where you operate and what it costs, near the top of your home and service pages.
• Comparison pages that honestly say when you are, and are not, the right choice.
• An FAQ written in your customers' words, answering the questions your sales team hears every week.
• The same business name, category, location and contact details everywhere they appear online.

You do not need an llms.txt file. Google says AI features need no special text files, Google's John Mueller has called the idea speculative, and an Ahrefs study of 137,210 domains found that 97% of the llms.txt files it tracked received no requests at all in May 2026.

Step 3: Build mentions you don't control

The data suggests this step matters most, and it takes the longest. The sources AI tools cite for recommendations are mostly independent:

• News and trade coverage. Journalism alone made up 27% of cited sources in Muck Rack's data. A pitch built on a real data point or story is the most reliable way in.
• Communities and video. A 2026 analysis of 30 million AI sources found Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn the most-cited domains. Take part as yourself, disclose your connection, and answer questions properly; promotional posts get removed.
• Review platforms. The same analysis found sites like Yelp and G2 cited often in recommendation questions. Ask happy customers for reviews; never write or buy them.
• Roundups and comparisons. Being listed, with a genuine reason, in credible “best of” articles in your niche puts your name next to the question people ask.

Ahrefs found that brand mentions across the web correlated with AI Overview visibility far more strongly than backlinks did (0.664 against 0.218), while noting that correlation is not causation. Source shares also swing: Semrush saw ChatGPT cite Reddit in close to 60% of answers in early August 2025 and around 10% six weeks later. Build presence in several places rather than betting on one.

Where press releases fit

A press release on a known site gives AI tools a consistent, factual account of who you are and what you do. It rarely earns a recommendation by itself: in Muck Rack's May 2026 report, press releases were about 1.1% of AI citations and appeared mostly in answers about industry trends, about 3.5 times as often as in “best of” answers. Use releases to anchor your facts and support real announcements; are paid press releases worth it? explains what they can and cannot do.

Step 4: Local businesses, fix your listings and reviews

For local questions, ChatGPT may use your approximate location, and for restaurants it may show reservation availability from OpenTable, Resy or Yelp. In July 2026 Yelp agreed to license its reviews and business details to OpenAI, and ChatGPT will surface Yelp reviews, ratings and photos in answers. A complete, accurate Yelp profile is now part of AI visibility.

Keep your Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business listings accurate as well. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking and that there is no way to pay for a better one.

Step 5: Online stores, connect your catalog

ChatGPT's shopping results are selected independently and are not ads. In the US, catalogs on Shopify and Etsy are already connected, and other merchants can apply through OpenAI's merchant program. Accurate product data, prices and availability matter more than product copy written for AI.

Step 6: Measure what you get

1. Track visits. ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to links it sends, so the traffic shows up in your analytics.
2. Track visibility, not rank. Write down ten questions a customer would ask, run each several times a month, and record the share of answers that mention you.
3. Keep it in proportion. BrightEdge reported ChatGPT referrals more than doubling in 2026, but AI still sends a small share of website traffic compared with traditional search.

What doesn't work

• Buying ChatGPT ads to be recommended. Ads sit apart from answers and do not influence them.
• Services that promise a guaranteed or number-one placement in ChatGPT. OpenAI guarantees placement to nobody.
• Special files or markup that claim to unlock AI answers.
• Fake reviews or self-written roundups on sites you secretly control.
• Press releases stuffed with keyword links, which Google treats as link spam.