How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
People now ask an assistant to recommend a supplier and act on the answer. Whether you are in that answer depends on what the web says about you, not on one clever page.
By Ads Ninza · Published 8 September 2026 · 6 min read
How an assistant decides who to recommend
When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Mode for "a good accountant for startups in Pune" or "a performance marketing agency that works with UK clients", the assistant draws on two things: what it learned in training, and what it retrieves from the web at the moment of the question.
The retrieval step looks a lot like search. The assistant runs queries, reads the pages that come back, and builds an answer from the sources it trusts. Businesses that appear in several of those sources with a consistent description are much more likely to be named. Businesses that appear only on their own website, described in vague language, rarely are.
No single tag or file gets you recommended. It is the combination of what you say and what others say about you.
Test where you stand first
Write down the ten questions a buyer would ask before choosing a business like yours. Include your city or country and your service. For example: "best interior designer in Bengaluru for a 3BHK", "Google Ads agency for dentists in Texas", "who does server-side tracking for Shopify in the UK".
Ask each question in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google. Record whether you are named, how you are described, whether the description is accurate, and which competitors appear. Repeat monthly.
This twenty-minute exercise tells you more than any tool. Most businesses find they are absent, or present with outdated or wrong details.
Fix your own site first
Say what you are, plainly. Your home page and about page should state your business name, what you do, where you operate, who you serve and how pricing works, in plain sentences near the top. Assistants quote clear statements. They skip clever taglines.
One page per service and market. A page that answers "what is it, who is it for, what does it cost, how does it work" for each service is much easier to cite than a single services page listing everything.
Answer questions directly. FAQ sections with real buyer questions and direct answers are among the most cited content on the web. Put the answer in the first sentence.
Structured data. Organisation, LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService, Service, FAQPage and Review markup help machines connect the facts. We wrote about this in detail in our GEO and AEO guide.
Let the crawlers in. Check that your robots.txt does not block GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot or Google-Extended unless you have a reason to. Many sites block them by accident through security plugins or CDN settings.
Build the corroboration
This is the part most businesses skip, and it is often the difference.
Google Business Profile with complete categories, services, photos and a steady flow of reviews. Assistants draw on it heavily for local questions.
Directories and marketplaces relevant to your industry, with the same name, address, phone and description everywhere.
Articles and mentions on other sites. Guest articles, interviews, industry association listings, podcast appearances, press coverage. Each independent mention that describes you consistently adds weight.
Reviews on third-party platforms relevant to your market: Google everywhere, plus Clutch for agencies, Practo for clinics in India, Trustpilot in the UK, and the platforms your buyers actually read.
Community answers. Genuine, helpful answers on Reddit, Quora and industry forums are frequently retrieved by assistants. Promotional posting gets removed and does harm.
Differences by market
Assistants localise their answers, and the sources they trust vary by country. In the USA, Yelp, BBB and industry directories carry weight for local services. In the UK, Trustpilot, Companies House details and trade body membership are frequently referenced. In Canada, bilingual presence matters for anything touching Quebec.
In the UAE, Arabic-language presence changes which sources an assistant can draw on when the question is asked in Arabic. In India, Justdial, IndiaMART, Practo and sector-specific platforms often appear in answers, alongside Google Business Profile.
The underlying method does not change: clear facts on your own site, the same facts on trustworthy third-party sources, and regular testing to see what the assistants actually say.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my business recommended by ChatGPT?
Make your own site state clearly what you do, where and for whom, with a page per service and direct answers to buyer questions. Then make sure the same facts appear on trustworthy third-party sources: Google Business Profile, directories, reviews and articles. Test your key questions monthly to see progress.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT answers?
Organic recommendations in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude cannot be bought. Some platforms are introducing clearly labelled ads, which are separate from the recommendations themselves. The organic answer depends on what the assistant can find and trust about you.
What is generative engine optimisation?
GEO is the work of making your business more likely to be cited or recommended in AI-generated answers. It combines clear on-site content, structured data, crawler access and a consistent presence across third-party sources the assistants draw on.
Does ChatGPT use Google search results?
ChatGPT search uses its own retrieval with partners, and Gemini and AI Mode draw on Google index. Perplexity runs its own searches. In practice, pages that rank and are cited well in traditional search are more likely to be retrieved by assistants too, which is why SEO foundations still matter.
How long does it take to appear in AI answers?
Retrieval-based answers can pick up changes within weeks once pages are crawled. Changes that depend on third-party mentions and reviews take months to build. Training data updates less often, so the retrieval side is where most short-term progress comes from.
Should I block AI crawlers from my website?
If you want to be recommended, generally no. Blocking crawlers such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended reduces the chance that assistants can read and cite your pages. Some publishers block training crawlers while allowing search crawlers, which is a reasonable middle ground.
What is llms.txt and do I need one?
It is a proposed plain-text file that gives AI systems a clean summary and index of your site. Adoption by the major assistants is still uneven. It costs little to add and does no harm, but it will not replace clear pages and third-party corroboration.
Why does ChatGPT describe my business incorrectly?
Because the sources it found are outdated or inconsistent. Old directory listings, a former address, an old service list or a competitor with a similar name can all cause it. Correct the facts at the source, keep them consistent everywhere, and the descriptions improve over time.
Do reviews affect AI recommendations?
For local and service businesses, yes. Assistants often summarise review sentiment and mention rating levels. A steady flow of genuine reviews on Google and the platforms relevant to your industry helps both traditional local search and AI recommendations.
How do we start with Ads Ninza?
Apply through the form on this page. On a paid discovery call, INR 499 in India and $9 elsewhere, we run your priority questions across the major assistants with you and show you where you stand. Search Everywhere Optimisation starts at INR 35,000 per month in India and $500 per month outside India.