How to Appear in Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT Search

What Google says about AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google's own guide, AI features and your website, is short and direct. The main points, as of October 2026:

• There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimisation is necessary.
• To be shown as a supporting link, a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Google Search with a snippet.
• You do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema.org markup.
• AI Overviews only appear when Google's systems decide they add something, so they often do not trigger.
• AI Overviews and AI Mode may run several related searches (Google calls it 'query fan-out'), which gives more types of sites a chance to be linked.

In other words, an 'AI SEO' package that sells you an llms.txt file or special AI schema is selling something Google says it does not use. If your site does not show up on Google at all, fix that first with our guide to why a website is not showing on Google.

What ChatGPT search needs: OAI-SearchBot and robots.txt

OpenAI documents its crawlers on its bots page. Each one is controlled separately in your robots.txt file:

OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they may still appear as plain navigational links, and that robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to apply. Google says Google-Extended does not affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search, and AI Overviews are part of Search, controlled by your normal Googlebot rules.

How to get your pages cited: step by step

None of this is new, which is the point: AI search answers are built from pages that already rank and are easy to quote.

1. 1

   Check robots.txt and bot settings

   Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. Make sure Googlebot and OAI-SearchBot are not disallowed, and check your CDN or security plugin does not block them.

2. 2

   Confirm indexing in Search Console

   Verify your site in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and use URL Inspection on your key pages. A page that is not indexed cannot appear in AI Overviews.

3. 3

   Answer one question per page

   Put a plain answer in the first two sentences: what you do, where, for whom and roughly what it costs. AI answers quote pages that state facts clearly.

4. 4

   Keep important content in text

   Prices, service areas, opening hours and FAQs should be text on the page, not only inside images, PDFs or pop-ups.

5. 5

   Make structured data match the page

   Use Organization, LocalBusiness, Product or FAQ markup only where it matches visible text. Google warns that structured data must match what users see.

6. 6

   Link related pages together

   Link each service page to its FAQs and guides so crawlers can find everything from your home page in a few clicks.

7. 7

   Keep your Business Profile current

   Google's guide names Business Profile information as a basic. Keep the address, hours, phone, categories and photos accurate.

Speed and page experience also count among Google's listed basics. Our Core Web Vitals guide shows how to check and fix them.

Local signals for Singapore businesses

Google's AI features guide tells site owners to keep their Business Profile and Merchant Center details up to date. For a local business, these are the details worth checking.

If you have not set up a profile yet, follow our Google Business Profile setup guide.

Measuring traffic from AI Overviews and ChatGPT

You cannot see a separate 'AI Overviews' report. Google says clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type, along with normal search clicks.

For ChatGPT, OpenAI's publisher FAQ says ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to links, so visits appear in Google Analytics with that source. In GA4, go to Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition and filter Session source for 'chatgpt'.

A simpler check: once a month, ask ChatGPT and Google the five questions your customers ask most, and note whether your business is mentioned or linked.

Should you block AI crawlers?

For most small businesses that want customers, blocking search crawlers costs more than it saves. Blocking training crawlers is a separate choice.

To limit what Google shows from a page in Search, including AI features, Google points to nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex. These also limit normal search snippets, so use them sparingly.

Do it yourself or get help?

Checking robots.txt, Search Console and your Business Profile takes an afternoon and needs no technical skill beyond logging in. Rewriting service pages so each answers a clear question is the bigger job, but you know your customers' questions best.

If you want it done for you, Speed & SEO Fix (S$390) checks crawl and index settings, bot blocking, structured data and page speed, then fixes what it finds. If your site is old or hard to edit, Business Website (S$1,490) rebuilds it with clear service pages on accounts you own. Typical SEO retainers are covered in our SEO cost guide.