The mechanism
Three things decide it, and two are in your control. Knowing which saves a lot of wasted effort.
The short answer
An assistant names you when it can retrieve a source about you, when several sources agree on what you are, and when what they say fits the question. You control your own page clarity and much of what third parties say. You do not control training, retrieval choices or when they change.
What ranked on 23 September 2026: Tool vendors and agency guides list tactics without separating what a business controls from what it does not. That split is the first thing to establish.
Last reviewed · 4 sources
Every worthwhile tactic maps onto one of these. Anything that maps onto none is decoration.
Claim and reality
Flip a card for what is actually true.
Claim
Add an llms.txt file and you will be cited.
Claim
Mention your brand name more often.
Claim
One prompt did not mention us, so it is broken.
In order. Tick as you go, or copy the list.
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Questions
OpenAI documents its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot. Retrieval arrangements change, so assume findable and clear helps everywhere.
Robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to reach ChatGPT search. A wider change in how you are described takes longer, because other sources must catch up.
Not in the organic answer that I found documented. Treat sponsored placement as a possible future option, not a shortcut.
Evidence, labelled
Each claim is labelled and sourced. Google rows speak only for Google.
Last reviewed · 4 sources
Allow OAI-SearchBot to appear in ChatGPT search.
Confirmed
OpenAI says sites that opt out will not appear in search answers, and GPTBot is independent.
Pages are cited when ChatGPT's own search retrieves them.
Reported
Preprint on 158,099 answers. Retrieval explained about 32% of variation, page properties 2.8%.
ChatGPT names brands it already knows.
Reported
Same preprint: it searches for known brands and brand names alone reordered products with identical facts.
llms.txt decides citations.
Not required
Google ignores such files. SE Ranking found no effect across nearly 300,000 domains.
Google, AI optimization guide (opens in a new tab) source 1SE Ranking llms.txt study (opens in a new tab) source 2
Go deeper
Next step
Send me your site and what you have tried. I will say which step comes first for you and which you can skip.