How do I optimize my website for AI search? What Google, Bing and OpenAI say

Google, Microsoft and OpenAI all say AI search is based on standard crawling and indexing. Here’s what they ask for, what you can skip, and a seven-step checklist.

See whether ChatGPT mentions your business — free test

How do I optimize my website for AI search? Short answer: You don’t need a new kind of optimization. Google, Microsoft and OpenAI all say AI search is built on standard crawling and indexing. Let the right bots in, put the text in the HTML, lead with the answer, and notify search engines about new pages. An llms.txt file or special AI markup isn’t required anywhere.

You can do most of it yourself in an afternoon, and you don’t need to buy new tech. That’s good news for a smaller business. AI search sounds like something that needs specialists, but the three biggest AI search engines have written down what they read, and it’s surprisingly down to earth.

This guide brings together what Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode), Microsoft (Copilot and Bing) and OpenAI (ChatGPT search) say in their own documentation, read on 16 October 2026. At the end you’ll get a checklist and our own numbers on where AI answers about Danish companies actually source their citations.

What does Google say about optimizing for AI Overviews and AI Mode?

That there’s nothing extra to do. On Google’s page on AI features, it says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. The page just needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Google with a snippet.

In May 2026, Google published a consolidated guide to generative AI in Search, which John Mueller introduced on Google’s blog. It goes a step further and debunks a number of myths. Google says you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup or Markdown. There’s no special schema.org markup you need to add, no ideal page length, and you don’t need to write in a special way for AI.

What the guide asks for is what a good page has always had:

• Content that isn’t everywhere else. Google calls it "non-commodity content": written from what you yourself know about the topic.
• Pages that can be crawled. Allow the bots in robots.txt, and make sure your hosting provider or CDN doesn’t block them.
• Important content as text. If your prices or services only appear in an image or behind JavaScript, they’re hard to read.
• A clear structure with paragraphs and headings.
• Structured data that matches the visible text, if you use it. Google says it isn’t a requirement for generative AI search.
• An up-to-date Google Business Profile and, if you sell products, Merchant Center.

What do I need to do to be included in ChatGPT search?

Let OpenAI’s search bot in. OpenAI says in its help that a site must allow OAI-SearchBot to be eligible to appear in ChatGPT search, and that your hosting provider or CDN must accept traffic from OpenAI’s published IP addresses. The same page says inclusion isn’t guaranteed.

OpenAI has three bots, and they do different things. It’s worth knowing the difference, because many block the wrong one. According to OpenAI’s crawler overview:

• OAI-SearchBot determines whether you can appear in ChatGPT’s search answers. If you block it, you won’t show up in the answers.
• GPTBot fetches content for model training. You can block it and still be included in search.
• ChatGPT-User visits a page when a user asks ChatGPT to. It doesn’t decide whether you’re included in search.

If you change robots.txt, OpenAI says it takes about a day for the change to take effect.

What does Microsoft say about Copilot and Bing?

That SEO fundamentals still apply, and that you should report changes quickly. In Bing’s webmaster guidelines, it says Copilot is built on the same foundations for crawling, indexing and ranking as Bing. Microsoft also states plainly that GEO doesn’t guarantee citations in AI answers.

The most concrete recommendation is IndexNow, an open standard where your site tells search engines when a page is added, changed or removed. Microsoft says it reduces outdated or incorrect links in Copilot’s answers. If your CMS or SEO plugin has IndexNow built in, it’s a setting you can turn on.

Microsoft also mentions what works against you. Keyword stuffing to force citations and large amounts of automatically generated content are on the list of things that aren’t allowed. And if you set noarchive on a page, its content may not be used in Copilot’s answers.

In Bing’s help for the AI Performance report, Microsoft also recommends descriptive headings, short paragraphs, tables and question-and-answer content, claims with evidence, and regular updates.

What shouldn’t I spend time on?

On shortcuts that don’t appear in any of the three sets of guidance. Google writes about llms.txt and similar AI files that Google Search doesn’t use them, and that they neither hurt nor help. If you already have one, you can leave it. If you don’t, that’s not where to start.

The same goes for chopping text into small chunks for AI, writing in a special AI style, or buying "mentions" around the web. Google says artificial mentions don’t help as much as they may seem. Research points the same way. In the KDD study from Princeton and Georgia Tech, keyword stuffing performed worse than doing nothing. What worked was adding verifiable material to the text, e.g. sources, quotations and figures.

Why is your own website the most important source?

Because that’s where the AI answers about you are drawn from. We asked four AI engines 576 common customer questions about 465 Danish companies in three industries and counted what the answers cited. Of the 4,034 sources, 61% were the companies’ own websites. Directories and review sites accounted for 16%, and other third parties for 23%.

There’s a caveat you should know. In our measurement, ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude ran through a shared search plugin, so for them the figure says something about the search layer in front of the model. Only Perplexity searched on its own. You can read the study and its caveats in full. The conclusion still stands: if your own site can’t be read, AI is missing the source most often used for companies like yours.

Checklist: how to optimize your website for AI search

Step	What to do · who says so
1. Let the bots in	Allow Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt, and check your hosting provider isn’t blocking them. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI
2. Get indexed	No noindex or nosnippet on pages you want included in answers. Check them in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Google, Microsoft
3. Put the text in the HTML	Services, prices and contact details as text, not only in images or behind JavaScript. Google
4. Put the answer first	Headings in the customer’s words, short paragraphs, tables and questions with answers. Microsoft, Google
5. Show what you know	Your own experience, examples and sourced figures rather than what everyone else also writes. Google, Microsoft
6. Report changes	Enable IndexNow, and keep the sitemap updated with correct dates. Microsoft
7. Keep profiles up to date	Google Business Profile and, for online shops, Merchant Center. Google

If you want to go deeper on the individual steps, 7 signs your website is invisible to ChatGPT shows how to find the issues, and the guide to content AI cites dives into steps 4 and 5.

How do I know if it’s working?

By looking at two things: whether AI mentions you, and whether people click through to your site. Google Search Console has a report on generative AI that shows which of your pages Google shows in its AI answers. Bing Webmaster Tools has the AI Performance report that shows how often Copilot cites your pages. You’ll find visits from ChatGPT and the others in Google Analytics or Plausible, and the guide to measuring AI traffic shows where.

What none of these tools tells you is whether AI mentions you when a customer asks for what you sell. You can check that yourself in 15 minutes, or you can let a GEO tool do it continuously. GEOA AI SEO employee™ continually asks your customers’ questions to the AI engines, finds what on your site stands in the way, and fixes it for you. Geoa optimizes for both Google and AI.

Frequently asked questions

How do I optimize my website for AI search?
With solid, standard SEO. Google, Microsoft and OpenAI all say AI search builds on crawling and indexing. Let Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot in, put key content as text in the HTML, lead with the answer using clear headings, and report new and changed pages via IndexNow.

Do I need an llms.txt file to be included in AI search?
No. Google says Google Search doesn’t use llms.txt or similar AI files, and that they neither help nor hurt. Neither Microsoft nor OpenAI requires it. If you have one, you can leave it, but it’s not the first thing to do.

Does AI search require structured data?
No, not at Google, which says structured data isn’t a requirement for generative AI search, and that there’s no special schema.org markup. If you use structured data, it must match the text on the page.

Which bot do I need to allow to be included in ChatGPT?
OAI-SearchBot. It’s the one that determines whether you can appear in ChatGPT’s search answers. GPTBot is used for training, so you can block it and still be included in search. Changes in robots.txt take about a day.

How long before AI search uses my changes?
It depends on when the bots come by again. You can speed it up by reporting changed pages with IndexNow, which Microsoft recommends for Copilot, and by requesting indexing in Google Search Console. None of the three promises a particular position in the answers.