How to show up in ChatGPT: first check that it can read your site (robots.txt, in 5 minutes)

Before anything else, check that ChatGPT is allowed to read your site, because if its search crawler is blocked, nothing else you do will matter. OpenAI says sites opted out of its search crawler won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers. It takes about five minutes to check, and you don't need to be technical. Step 1: Open your robots.txt In a browser, go to your own site with /robots.txt on the end: https://yoursite.com/robots.txt This is a small public text file telling crawlers what they may read. If you get a "not found" page, that's fine. No file means nothing is being blocked this way. Step 2: Look for these three patterns Blocked by name. This one keeps ChatGPT's search out: User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Disallow: / Everything blocked. This one blocks all well-behaved crawlers, including Google, and it's usually a leftover from when the site was being built: User-agent: * Disallow: / A training block, which is a separate thing. Many sites now have this: User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / GPTBot is the crawler OpenAI uses for training its models. OpenAI treats the settings as independent, so blocking GPTBot doesn't remove you from ChatGPT search. You can block training and still allow search. Whether to allow training is your call, and it isn't what decides this. Step 3: Fix it Here's a version that allows search and opts out of training: User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Allow: / User-agent: GPTBot Disallow: / If your site's on a builder like Wix or Squarespace, you may not edit this file directly. Look in its settings for anything about search engines, crawlers or AI, and turn off options that block them. On WordPress, security and SEO plugins sometimes add these rules, so check there too. OpenAI says it can take about 24 hours after a robots.txt change for its systems to adjust. Step 4: Check your firewall This one catches a lot of people, because robots.txt can look fine while the crawler is still turned away. Some hosts and security services can block AI crawlers. OpenAI recommends allowing its published IP ranges as well as allowing the bot in robots.txt. If you use a service like Cloudflare, look for a setting about AI bots. If you're not sure, ask whoever runs your hosting: "Are we blocking OAI-SearchBot at the firewall?" It's a fair question and takes them a minute to answer. Step 5: Then ask, a few times Open a new chat and ask what a customer would ask: the best of your kind of business in your town. Do it three times. The answers will change, so one try tells you little. Don't expect instant results. Letting it in only makes you eligible to be read. Whether it names you depends on what it finds, and no one can promise that part. We wrote up other reasons ChatGPT might skip you and how to check each. This article was created with the help of AI.