To improve your website's chances of being cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity, check that their search crawlers can access your source pages, then make those pages useful answers with verifiable evidence. No checklist guarantees selection. Start with access, evidence and clarity before adding more content.
Use this checklist yourself, or explore Toimi's AI visibility services if you need help turning the findings into a site-wide plan.
Can the relevant crawlers reach the page?
Check the actual URL. A working homepage tells you little about an article behind a challenge screen.
Review robots.txt, server responses and firewall events. Fetch the page HTML and inspect what it contains. Check for login requirements, broken redirects and access rules that block the intended crawler.
OpenAI distinguishes OAI-SearchBot from GPTBot. The former supports search discovery; the latter concerns model training. Their controls are independent. A training decision should not accidentally determine search access.
Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot and its published IP ranges for search visibility. Firewall exceptions should combine verified IP ranges with user-agent checks. Ask the site administrator to implement the narrow rule your policy permits.
Is the page useful without running an interface?
Put the answer, conditions and evidence in readable page text. A chart can illustrate a finding. Its caption should explain the finding too.
Check the delivered HTML. Confirm that important facts are present or otherwise accessible to the relevant fetcher. Do not assume every crawler executes the same JavaScript as your browser.
Keep the visible text consistent with structured data. Correct markup can describe content, but a schema field cannot compensate for an empty answer.
What would justify citing this page?
Write down the question the page answers. Then identify what the page contributes: a documented test, a calculation, an original comparison or a clear procedure.
Show where the information came from. Include assumptions beside calculations. Link to primary sources for externally sourced claims. A reader should be able to reproduce the reasoning.
Avoid unsupported authority claims. A named expert quotation needs that person's supplied words and permission. A customer result needs a traceable case or record. Remove claims that cannot survive that check.
Does the opening answer the buyer's question?
Read the heading and first paragraph together. Could a busy buyer stop there and understand the answer's main condition?
Put the explanation below. Use question headings for the next decisions: cost, eligibility, limitations or alternatives. Keep those questions together when they belong to the same decision.
Do not create a new page for every wording variation. First check your existing pages. Improving a relevant source page may be the smaller, clearer action.
Are the facts current and attributable?
Verify prices, product limits and availability against their source. Record the verification date. Change the page date when the material changes.
Give readers an author or reviewer whose role is real. Add contact information and a clear organization identity. These help people assess the source; they do not constitute a citation guarantee.
For broader search context, Google's AI-feature documentation says foundational SEO remains relevant. Google's eligibility rules apply to Google. Do not treat them as a specification for ChatGPT or Perplexity.
How should the team record the checks?
Use one row per source page:
| Check | Evidence to attach | Owner |
| Crawler access | Response, robots rule, verified log event | Site administrator |
| Readable answer | HTML extract and page screenshot | Developer/editor |
| Claims verified | Source URL or internal evidence record | Subject expert |
| Opening answers question | Heading and opening paragraph | Editor |
| Existing-page overlap checked | Competing URL and decision | SEO owner |
| Outcome recorded | Citation observation and raw answer | Marketing analyst |
Mark unknowns as unknown. Fix blocked access first. Rewrite weak answers next.
Why can a ready page still go uncited?
Access establishes an opportunity to retrieve the page. Source selection remains outside your control. The system may choose another source, answer without linking to you or vary between runs.
Record repeated observations before declaring success. Compare the source the product actually cited with your page: what evidence, specificity or answer did it supply?
Use that comparison to identify a useful edit. Repeating unsupported promises about “AI rankings” will not resolve a missing fact or blocked URL.