How to rank in ChatGPT and Google together

By Geolytic team · 2 November 2026 · 4 min read

Why one plan works for both

Google ranks pages it can crawl, understand and trust. AI assistants that search the web need almost exactly the same things. They fetch pages, look for clear statements they can quote and prefer sources that look reliable. Work you do for one channel usually helps the other.

The differences are smaller than most people think. Google shows a list of links. An assistant writes an answer that may name a few businesses. So the goal shifts from position on a page to being mentioned and cited in an answer. The foundations stay the same.

Step 1: Make every important page readable

Start with crawl access. Googlebot must reach your pages. AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search must reach them too. A robots.txt rule meant to block training crawlers often blocks search crawlers by accident. Our AI crawler guide explains each one.

Then check that the main content appears in the HTML your server sends. Pages that only show text after scripts run can look empty to some crawlers. A technical SEO audit shows broken pages, missing titles, thin descriptions and pages that fail to load.

Step 2: Answer the questions buyers ask

Write down twenty questions your customers ask before they buy. Include comparisons, prices, locations and common problems. Give each question a clear answer near the top of a relevant page. Google can use that answer for a snippet. An assistant can quote it in a reply.

• Lead with a direct answer in one or two sentences.
• Add concrete facts such as prices, service areas or delivery times.
• Use plain headings that match how people phrase the question.
• Link related pages so both crawlers find the full picture.

Step 3: Describe your business the same way everywhere

Search engines and assistants both build a picture of who you are. If your homepage says one thing while your directory listings say another, that picture gets blurry. Use the same name, the same description of what you do and the same location details on your site and your public profiles.

Structured data helps here. Organization markup on your homepage plus accurate markup on product or article pages makes your facts easier to read. Our GEO audit checks whether that markup exists and parses correctly.

Step 4: Earn mentions on other sites

Links from relevant sites still matter for Google. Mentions on trusted sites also shape what assistants say about a category. Focus on real reasons for people to mention you. Useful guides, honest comparisons, partner pages and industry directories all count. Avoid paid link schemes because they can hurt your Google rankings.

Step 5: Measure both channels honestly

For Google, use Search Console to see impressions, clicks and the queries that bring visitors. For the AI side there is no official ranking report, so you need to ask the questions yourself and record what comes back.

That is what the paid AI answer checks in Geolytic do. You save the buyer questions that matter to your business. Geolytic asks them through the official APIs for Gemini with Google Search, an OpenAI model without search and Claude. It then records whether your brand was mentioned, where it appeared in the answer and which competitors were named.

• Mention detection uses plain text matching on the stored answer, so results are repeatable.
• Failed requests are saved as failures instead of being filled with guesses.
• Share of voice shows how often you appear compared with the competitors you track.
• The number of checks depends on your plan.

Be clear about the limits. These are answers from official APIs, not screenshots of the consumer ChatGPT app. Answers change from day to day. Perplexity is not checked. Treat each run as a sample you repeat over time, not a fixed ranking.

A simple monthly routine

1. Run a full audit and fix the highest priority technical issues.
2. Improve one or two pages so they answer a buyer question better.
3. Run your saved AI answer checks and note new mentions or lost ones.
4. Compare with Search Console clicks for the same topics.
5. Pick the next questions to cover based on both results.

If you are just starting, our guide on how to rank in ChatGPT goes deeper on the AI side. The GEO vs SEO article explains where the two disciplines differ.

Start with a free audit

You can check the foundations for free. Run a free audit to see crawl access, structured data and technical issues on up to five pages. When you are ready to track real AI answers, compare the plans on the pricing page.

Keep reading

• How to choose a generative engine optimization (GEO) tool
• AI search visibility checker: what it can measure and what it cannot
• What to look for in an AI SEO tool in 2026