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AI search for local businesses, answered.
Straight answers to the questions owners and marketers ask about AEO, AI visibility and how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity recommend businesses.
What is AEO (answer engine optimization)?AEO is the work of getting a business named in the answers AI engines give, on ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. What it is, and how it differs from GEO and SEO.AEO vs SEO for a local business: what is the difference?SEO earns a place in a list of links. AEO earns being named in the AI answer. How they differ for a local business, with data from 120,000+ AI answers.How does ChatGPT decide which local businesses to recommend?ChatGPT searches the web, opens a few pages, and writes its answer from what they say. What that means for local businesses, with data from 64,441 AI answers.How do you measure a business's visibility in AI search?Ask the engines what customers ask, many times, and count who gets named. The metrics that matter and the mistakes that make AI visibility numbers wrong.How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and other AI enginesSix principles for getting a local business named by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, from 120,000+ AI answers. Including dealerships, clinics and hotels.AI visibility tools for local businesses, comparedProfound, Otterly, Peec, Semrush, Yext, BrightLocal, Birdeye, Local Falcon, Scrunch, Cheers and Cloute: who each is built for, and which measure each location against its local rivals.What is GPTBot?GPTBot is OpenAI's crawler for content that may train its AI models. What it does, how to block it, and why blocking it does not hide you from ChatGPT.What is OAI-SearchBot?OAI-SearchBot is the crawler OpenAI uses to show websites in ChatGPT search. Block it and your site stops appearing in ChatGPT search answers.What is ChatGPT-User?ChatGPT-User is the user agent ChatGPT uses when it opens a web page because a person asked it something. What it means when it shows up in your logs.What is ClaudeBot? And what are Claude-User and Claude-SearchBot?ClaudeBot collects pages that may train Claude. Claude-SearchBot indexes for search. Claude-User fetches pages for users. How to control each one.What is PerplexityBot? And what is Perplexity-User?PerplexityBot indexes sites for Perplexity search and is not used to train AI models. Perplexity-User fetches pages live when users ask questions.AI crawlers: the complete list for 2026Every major AI crawler in 2026, from GPTBot and ClaudeBot to Google-Extended and Amazonbot, with its company, purpose and robots.txt token.Should a local business block AI crawlers?Block training crawlers if you prefer. Do not block search crawlers or live fetchers if you want AI engines to recommend you. robots.txt examples inside.
Looking for the numbers? Read the research.