Anyone can now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Mode "which dentist is open on Saturdays near me?" instead of scanning a list of links. If you run a local business, the useful question is how much of whether you get mentioned depends on you. This guide separates what you can control from what you cannot, using what the companies themselves say in their documentation.
Short answer: you can control whether crawlers can reach your site, whether your details match on your site and Google profile, and whether each page answers clearly; you cannot control what each system cites, and Google says no special optimization for AI is needed.
One warning before we start: nobody, us included, can guarantee that an AI answer will name you. What you can do is stay out of the way and keep your information clear so it is easy to use.
What you control and what you don't
| What you control | What you don't control |
|---|---|
| Whether crawlers can reach your site (robots.txt and your hosting) | Which pages each system picks to cite, or in what order |
| Whether your details match on your site and your Google profile (name, address, phone, hours) | When an AI answer shows up for a search, or doesn't |
| Whether each service has its own page, with the answer at the top | Paying or asking for a better spot in Google's local ranking (Google says you can't) |
| Whether your structured data matches what the page shows | Whether Google or a crawler shows a feature just because you added the markup |
| Which snippets you allow (nosnippet, max-snippet) | Whether a Google feature uses your page once you did all of the above |
Look at the right column: almost everything there is another company's decision. That is why the left column is short and concrete. It is where your work does change something.
What Google says
Google's page on AI features in Search (updated December 10, 2025) is direct: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." For a page to show as a supporting link, it has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet. Meeting that does not guarantee Google will crawl, index or show it.
Three more points from that page that matter to a local business:
- Crawling allowed. Google recommends making sure crawling is allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure.
- Matching structured data. It has to match the visible text of the page. The same page says there is no special schema.org markup you need to add.
- Snippet controls. To limit what is shown, there are nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex. That is your decision, and Google asks you to allow time for it to recrawl the page and process the change.
Google's guide to optimizing for generative AI (updated July 10, 2026) adds something you hear a lot: you do not need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup or Markdown to appear in Search, because Google Search does not use them. Making them, it says, neither helps nor hurts your visibility there. That sentence is only about Google. What other systems do with such files is not on any of the pages we read.
ChatGPT and Perplexity
These two companies publish which crawlers they use and what for. What matters is that they separate the crawler that builds search from the one that trains models and from the one that acts when a user asks.
| Crawler | What it is for (per their documentation) | Does robots.txt control it? |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI) | Search: surfacing sites in ChatGPT search | Yes. A change can take about 24 hours to apply |
| GPTBot (OpenAI) | Content that may be used to train models | Yes, and it is independent of search |
| ChatGPT-User (OpenAI) | Actions a user asks for inside ChatGPT | Generally no: the rules may not apply |
| PerplexityBot | Surfacing and linking sites in Perplexity results | They recommend allowing it to appear |
| Perplexity-User | A user's actions in Perplexity | Generally ignores robots.txt |
OpenAI is specific about OAI-SearchBot: sites that opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. And disallowing GPTBot indicates your content should not be used for training, but "each setting is independent of the others". Whoever wants out of training and still in search can have both.
Check your robots.txt
The robots.txt file sits at the root of your domain and anyone can read it. This is the check, read only:
- Open a terminal and run the command below, swapping in your own domain. It only reads a public file.
- Look for lines that say Disallow: /. If they sit under User-agent: *, you are blocking everyone.
- Look for groups named after the crawlers in the table above (OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot...). A crawler uses the group that matches its name most closely.
- If there is no group with its name, the robots.txt standard, as Google documents it in its specification, sends the crawler to the * group. Each company says on its own page whether it follows robots.txt (table above).
- If your hosting or CDN has its own bot blocking, check it separately: Google mentions that too.
terminal
curl -s https://YOUR-DOMAIN.com/robots.txt
This is the result of the same command against two of our sites:
Bash(curl -s https://svdiginet.com/robots.txt)
User-agent: *
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://svdiginet.com/sitemap.xml
Bash(curl -s https://prompt13.com/robots.txt)
User-Agent: *
Allow: /
User-Agent: GPTBot / OAI-SearchBot / ChatGPT-User / PerplexityBot / Perplexity-User (and others)
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://prompt13.com/sitemap.xml
On svdiginet.com there is no group for the AI crawlers, so, under that rule, the * group applies, and it allows everything. On prompt13.com they are named and also allowed. Both ways let them in. If your file blocks something and you do not know why, ask whoever set it up before changing it: sometimes a block is there on purpose.
The checklist for your page
None of these five is an "AI optimization". Three come from what Google asks for (matching details, up-to-date profile, correct markup) and two are our recommendation (one page per service, answer first); Google asks for nothing special for AI. Check them on your site:
- Same details everywhere. Name, address, phone and hours identical on your site and your Google profile. Google says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local results.
- One page per service (our recommendation). "Air conditioner repair in Kissimmee" has its own page; it is not a line inside "Services".
- The answer first (our recommendation). Each page opens with one or two sentences that answer what someone would ask: what you do, where, for whom and what happens next.
- Reviews and profile up to date. Google describes prominence as how well-known a business is, tied to reviews and the links you get. As our own advice: reply to reviews and keep the profile complete.
- LocalBusiness markup, if you use it, correct. Google requires name and address to be eligible for a rich result, and recommends telephone, url, geo and openingHoursSpecification. It also warns that it does not guarantee features that use structured data will show up.
On local ranking, the Google Business Profile help is clear: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." Anyone offering you that is promising something Google says does not exist.
One paragraph, before and after
We made this example up to show the idea. The business does not exist and the numbers belong to nobody.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| We are a company with years of experience committed to excellence. We offer comprehensive climate solutions tailored to your needs, with personalized attention. | We repair and install air conditioners in Kissimmee and Davenport, FL, for homes and small businesses. Call (000) 000-0000 and we tell you on the call whether a visit is needed. Open Monday to Saturday. |
The "before" does not say what they do, where or for whom. A human reader is already lost; a system looking for one sentence to answer "who repairs air conditioners in Kissimmee?" has little to use, in our view. The "after" answers what, where, for whom and how to reach them, in two sentences that still make sense when lifted out of the page.
What is not measured
- How many people reach a local business from an AI answer. None of the pages we read publishes that number and we have not measured it.
- Whether allowing the AI crawlers gets you cited more. OpenAI and Perplexity say blocking them takes you out of their results; they do not say allowing them secures you a spot.
- What ChatGPT, Perplexity and others do with extra AI files. Google said its part; for the rest we have no direct source.
- How the "user action" crawlers behave when they visit your page. They say they generally ignore robots.txt, so you have no switch for that.
If you want a review
At SVDIGINET we work on local business visibility: Google profile, local SEO and the page your customer lands on (more in the story of the agency). If you want to see how your profile and your page stand against this list, start with the free audit: we review your visibility, your reputation and the path a customer takes to contact you, and tell you what to fix first. The audit is a diagnosis, not a promise of results.
Sources: Google Search Central: AI features and your website, updated 2025-12-10, read Oct 29, 2026; Google Search Central: optimizing for generative AI, updated 2026-07-10, read Oct 29, 2026; Google: how Google interprets the robots.txt specification; RFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocol; Google: LocalBusiness structured data; Google Business Profile: tips to improve your local ranking; OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers; Perplexity: Perplexity Crawlers
