How Do You Get Cited by ChatGPT?
ChatGPT cites sources through its search feature, which retrieves live pages, not through its training data. To be cited, allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, rank for the question being asked, and put a self-contained answer in the first paragraph. Being included in training data does not produce citations, because the model cannot link to what it merely absorbed.
Last verified 2026-08-08.
OpenAI's three crawlers, and which one matters
| Factor | Why it matters | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | Builds the index ChatGPT search retrieves from. This is the one that produces citations. | Allow it. Blocking it removes you from ChatGPT search results entirely. |
| ChatGPT-User | Fetches a page live when a user asks about a specific URL or topic. | Allow it, so a user asking about you gets your actual page. |
| GPTBot | Collects data for model training. Training gives no attribution and no link. | Allowing it is optional and is a licensing decision, not an SEO one. |
Why "get into the training data" is the wrong goal
A model that learned something during training cannot cite it, because there is no URL attached to a weight. Attribution only exists when the system retrieves a document at answer time and shows where the text came from.
That is why the practical work is ordinary retrieval work: be crawlable, be relevant to a specific question, and be quotable. It is closer to ranking for a featured snippet than to anything exotic.
What a citable passage looks like
Assistants quote passages, not pages. A paragraph that begins "As we discussed above, this depends on several factors" cannot be quoted, because it does not survive being lifted out of context.
A paragraph that begins "ChatGPT cites sources through its search feature, which retrieves live pages" can be quoted verbatim and still make sense. Write the first paragraph as though it will be the only thing anyone reads, because for an assistant it usually is.
Frequently asked questions
Does ChatGPT use my content if I block GPTBot?
Blocking GPTBot excludes your content from model training but does not remove you from ChatGPT search, which uses OAI-SearchBot. The two are separate. Many publishers deliberately block GPTBot and allow OAI-SearchBot, keeping the citations while opting out of training.
How do I get my website cited by ChatGPT?
Allow OAI-SearchBot, make sure the page returns real HTML rather than an empty JavaScript shell, and answer one specific question in the opening paragraph. ChatGPT search retrieves and quotes, so the page most directly answering the question wins more often than the strongest domain.
Why does ChatGPT cite my competitor and not me?
Usually one of three reasons: your page is not retrievable (blocked crawler, or content rendered only in JavaScript), your answer is buried below an introduction so there is no self-contained passage to quote, or your page covers the topic broadly while theirs answers the exact question asked.
Is ChatGPT SEO different from Google SEO?
The retrieval half is similar enough that ranking well helps in both. The difference is what gets rewarded once retrieved: Google ranks pages, ChatGPT quotes passages. That makes answer position and self-containment matter far more than they do for a classic blue link.
Doing this for every question is the hard part
The technique above is not complicated; the volume is. Being the cited answer means having a page for every question your buyers ask, each one current and specific. FirstSearch writes and delivers those articles to your site automatically.
See how it works