Can I pay to rank in ChatGPT or Gemini?

No. Neither assistant sells places in its organic answers. You improve your chances by being easy to crawl, clearly described, consistently listed and genuinely well reviewed.

Which bot does ChatGPT use to find websites?

OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI says sites that block it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. GPTBot is a separate crawler used for model training, and ChatGPT-User visits pages when a user asks it to.

Do I need a Google Business Profile to appear in Gemini?

For local recommendations it is one of the strongest signals, because it feeds Google Maps and local results. Follow Google's guidelines: use your real business name, avoid virtual office addresses and hide your address if you are a service-area business.

How do I check if ChatGPT or Gemini mention my business?

Ask both the same set of customer questions every month, record whether your business is named and described correctly, and look for visits from chatgpt.com and gemini.google.com in your analytics.

How to Rank in ChatGPT and Gemini: A Guide for Dubai

Q: Does Gemini use Google search results?

Yes. Google says Gemini relies on external sources such as Google Search to generate responses, a process called retrieval augmentation. Being indexed and well represented in Google is the foundation for appearing in Gemini.

Q: What is Google-Extended and should I allow it?

Google-Extended is a robots.txt token that controls whether Google may use your content for Gemini training and grounding. Google says it does not affect Google Search. Allow it if you want Gemini to be able to use your pages.

Short answer: how to rank in ChatGPT and Gemini comes down to being easy to find in the searches they run. ChatGPT uses OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot and third-party search providers. Gemini relies on Google Search. So allow those crawlers, get indexed in Google and Bing, keep your Google Business Profile complete, publish answer-first pages and earn consistent mentions on trusted sites.

Nobody can guarantee a position in an AI answer, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What you can do is remove every reason for these assistants to skip you.

Can you actually rank in ChatGPT or Gemini?

Not in the way you rank on a Google results page. There is no fixed list. Each answer is written fresh, and it changes with the question, the user's location and new search results. The goal is to be named and cited often, and described accurately.

That is why we talk about visibility rather than rank. Track how often your business appears for a set of real questions, and whether the details are right.

How does ChatGPT find businesses?

ChatGPT finds businesses through web search. OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features, and sites that block it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI crawlers).

OpenAI also says ChatGPT may send follow-up queries to third-party search providers. It may use your approximate location to localise questions like "near me" (OpenAI Help Center). After a robots.txt change, OpenAI says its search systems can take about 24 hours to adjust.

OAI-SearchBot: for ChatGPT search. Allow it if you want to be shown.
GPTBot: for training OpenAI's models. Allowing it is your choice.
ChatGPT-User: visits pages when a user asks ChatGPT to open them.

How does Gemini find businesses?

Gemini leans on Google. Google says Gemini relies on external sources such as Google Search to generate responses, a process called retrieval augmentation (Google). Developers can connect Gemini to live results through Grounding with Google Search.

So the way to rank in Gemini is, mostly, to be strong in Google: indexed pages, a clear entity in Google's Knowledge Graph and a complete Google Business Profile. One extra control matters. Google-Extended lets you decide whether Google may use your content for Gemini training and grounding. Google says it does not affect Google Search (Google crawlers). If you want Gemini to use your pages, keep Google-Extended allowed.

Which Google signals matter most for Gemini?

The Google signals that matter most are your index coverage, your entity data and your Business Profile. Together they tell Google, and therefore Gemini, who you are, where you are and whether people trust you.

Index coverage. Submit a sitemap in Search Console (Google sitemap guide). Pages that are not indexed cannot support an AI answer.
Entity clarity. Google says knowledge panels are built automatically from sources across the web (Knowledge Panel Help). Use Organization and Person markup with sameAs links to real profiles (Organization markup).
Business Profile. Local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence, including reviews and links (Google Business Profile Help).
Snippet eligibility. To support AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet (Google Search Central).

What should you do first to rank in ChatGPT and Gemini?

Work through this checklist in order. Each step is documented by the platforms, and most cost time rather than money.

Allow OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, Googlebot, Google-Extended and PerplexityBot in robots.txt.
Check your CDN or firewall is not blocking those crawlers. Test with their real user agents.
Verify your site in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap.
Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools, since assistants also use search partners beyond Google.
Create or claim your Google Business Profile, following Google's guidelines exactly.
Add Organization and Person structured data with sameAs links to every real profile.
Publish answer-first pages for the questions customers ask before they buy.
Earn reviews and mentions on reputable sites, consistently using the same facts.

How do Google Business Profile and the Knowledge Graph help?

They give Google a verified, structured record of your business. That record feeds Maps, local results and the knowledge Gemini draws on, so gaps or errors there spread into AI answers.

Follow the Business Profile guidelines closely. Use your real-world business name with no added keywords. Choose the fewest categories that describe your core business. A virtual office is not eligible. If you serve customers at their locations, set up as a service-area business and hide your address.

For the Knowledge Graph, consistency is everything. Use the same name, description, founders and links on your website, your profile, LinkedIn, Instagram and directories.

What content do ChatGPT and Gemini cite most?

They cite content that answers the question clearly and backs it up. The GEO study tested this on 10,000 queries: citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics raised visibility by up to 40% (Aggarwal et al.).

The same study found keyword stuffing did not help, and that lower-ranked sites gained most from these changes. For a newer Dubai business, that is encouraging. Clear, honest, well-sourced pages can be cited next to much bigger names.

Lead with a direct answer under each question heading.
Back claims with links to official or independent sources.
Use real figures you can prove, never invented ones.
Keep key facts in text, not only inside images or videos.

How long does it take to show up?

Technical fixes can take effect within days, while reputation takes months. OpenAI says robots.txt changes take about 24 hours to reach ChatGPT search. Google says recrawling can take from several days to several months (Google Search Central).

Reviews, mentions and press build over time. Measure monthly, and expect the trend to matter more than any single answer.

How do you know it is working?

Run the same set of customer questions in ChatGPT and Gemini every month, and record whether you are named and described correctly. Then check Search Console and your analytics for supporting signals.

Google counts clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode in the standard web data in Search Console. In analytics, watch for visits referred from chatgpt.com, gemini.google.com and perplexity.ai. When an assistant gets a fact wrong, trace the source page and fix it there.

Key takeaways

You cannot buy or guarantee a place in ChatGPT or Gemini answers.
ChatGPT needs OAI-SearchBot access; Gemini relies on Google Search and Google-Extended.
Search Console, a complete Business Profile and consistent entity data are the Gemini essentials.
Well-sourced, answer-first pages get cited; keyword stuffing does not.

Written by Allen Antony James, Founder of Storytellers, a storyteller-first studio based in Dubai, telling stories worldwide. Want help putting this into practice? See SEO & GEO in Dubai or tell us about your business.

Sources

Every claim in this guide links to its source. All sources were checked on 8 Oct 2026.

How to rank in ChatGPT and Gemini