To get cited by ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews, a page has to be open to each engine's search crawler, indexed, and clear enough to quote. In our study of 498 Australian marketing searches on 1 October 2026, AI Overviews appeared on 433, and only about a third of the links they cited ranked in Google's top 10.
That gap is what this guide is about, whether you call it ChatGPT SEO, LLM SEO or AI search optimisation, and it is the core of our AI SEO agency work. Below: what our data shows, the steps for each engine, and how to measure AI referrals in GA4. The full data and method are in our study of AI Overviews in Australian search.
What we found in 498 Australian searches
AI Overviews now sit above most Australian searches about marketing, and they cite a wider set of pages than the ranked results. We pulled live Google results for 498 Australian marketing searches on 1 October 2026 (English, desktop, through DataForSEO), covering marketing services, costs and tools, marketing for industries from trades to law, and searches for a service in a named city. Then we recorded every link each AI Overview cited.
| What we measured | Result |
|---|---|
| Searches showing an AI Overview | 433 of 498 (87%) |
| Question or research searches, such as "what is aeo" | 48 of 48 |
| Topic searches, such as "google ads cost" | 262 of 275 |
| Searches for a provider, such as "seo agency" | 99 of 115 |
| Calculator or formula searches | 11 of 14 |
| Service plus city searches, such as "seo sydney" | 13 of 46 |
| Links cited across the 426 answers that listed sources | 3,449 (a median of 8 per answer) |
| Cited links going to .au sites | 38.4% |
| Answers citing at least one .au site | 320 of 426 |
| Answers citing YouTube | 214 of 426 |
| Cited links that ranked in Google's top 10 for the same search | 34.6% |
| Answers that cited the page ranked first | 173 of 426 |
Source: Profit Geeks study of live Google results from DataForSEO, Australia, English, desktop, 1 October 2026.
The most-cited sources were platforms, not businesses: YouTube (in 214 answers), LinkedIn (79), Reddit (76), Google's own pages (42) and Salesforce (33). The most-cited Australian site was a marketing agency that appeared in 29 answers across 22 different pages, and its single most-cited page was a Google Ads cost guide. Cost questions are where Australian businesses get quoted most: in our marketing cost searches, 53 percent of cited links went to .au sites, the highest share of any marketing topic we checked.
Do you need to rank in Google to be cited?
Ranking helps, but it is no longer the gate. About two thirds of the links AI Overviews cited did not rank in Google's top 10 for that search. Google's AI features can split one question into several related searches, which Google calls query fan-out, so a page can be pulled in by a related search rather than the one that was typed.
The link is tighter for Australian sites: 46 percent of the cited .au pages ranked in the top 10, against 27 percent of everything else. So for an Australian business, ranking well for the question still matters, and the AI Overview gives pages that rank lower a second chance.
YouTube is the clearest case of being cited without ranking. It was cited in 214 AI Overviews but held a top-10 organic result in only 41 of those searches. If a question is easier to answer by showing than telling, a short video is one of the most direct routes into an AI Overview we found.
Do AI Overviews show for local searches?
Mostly not yet. When Google showed a local map pack, an AI Overview appeared on only 29 of 78 searches, against 404 of 420 searches without one. Searches that name a service and a city, such as "seo sydney" or "web design brisbane", showed an AI Overview on just 13 of 46. For local service businesses, the Google Business Profile and the map pack still carry those searches, so keep the profile accurate before worrying about AI answers.
How to get cited in Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode
Meet Google's conditions, then make your page the most useful answer to one of the questions behind the search. In order:
- Be eligible. The page must be in Google's index and allowed to show a snippet. Don't put nosnippet, data-nosnippet or a tight max-snippet on pages you want quoted, because those are the controls Google gives you to limit what its AI features can show.
- Check the switch. In Search Console, under Settings, Search generative AI should be on Include, which is the default. Exclude removes your links and content from AI Overviews, AI Mode and the AI features in Discover.
- Write what nobody else can. Google wants what it calls non-commodity content, and its guide contrasts a generic list of tips with a first-hand account of a real decision. For an Australian business, that means your prices, your timeframes, your local conditions and your results, with dates.
- Answer the follow-up questions on the same page. Cover what a buyer asks next under clear headings. Don't build a page for every variation: when the aim is to sway its AI answers, Google treats that as scaled content abuse under its spam policies.
- Add images and video where they help. Google says its AI features can bring in relevant images and video, and in our data YouTube was the most-cited source by a wide margin.
- Keep your Google Business Profile and Merchant Center feed accurate. Google says both help local businesses and products show in AI responses.
How to get cited by ChatGPT
Let OpenAI's search crawler in, then give it something worth quoting. OpenAI runs three crawlers, and they do different jobs:
- OAI-SearchBot finds pages for ChatGPT's search features. OpenAI says sites that block it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
- GPTBot collects content that may be used to train OpenAI's models. Blocking it is a training decision, separate from search.
- ChatGPT-User visits a page when a person asks ChatGPT to. OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply, because a user started the request.
Once the crawler can reach you, the content rules are the same as for Google: a direct answer near the top of each section, figures with their source and date, and facts about your business that match everywhere they appear. OpenAI's publisher FAQ says ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the links it sends, which matters for measurement below.
How to get cited by Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini and Claude
- Perplexity. Allow PerplexityBot. Perplexity recommends it, and says PerplexityBot is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models. Its other agent, Perplexity-User, fetches pages when a person asks and generally ignores robots.txt.
- Microsoft Copilot. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools. Since February 2026 its AI Performance report has shown how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, and the phrases its AI used to find them. Bing also points site owners to IndexNow to keep content fresh in search and AI answers.
- Gemini. Google-Extended controls whether your content is used to train Gemini models and to ground their answers. Blocking it keeps your content out of both, and Google says it has no effect on Google Search.
- Claude. Anthropic runs Claude-SearchBot for search and says blocking it may reduce your site's visibility and accuracy in Claude's search results. ClaudeBot is its training crawler, which is a separate decision.
How to measure AI referrals in GA4
GA4 now does part of the job itself. Since 13 May 2026, its default channel group has included an AI Assistant channel: when a visit's referrer matches Google's list of AI assistants, GA4 sets the medium to ai-assistant and the campaign to (ai-assistant). Google's channel documentation names ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Copilot and Grok, and its release note names Claude. Google doesn't publish the full list, and the channel leaves out AI Overviews and AI Mode, which are part of Google search.
- Open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. The table groups sessions by channel by default, so look for the AI Assistant row.
- Switch the dimension to Session source / medium to see which assistants sent the visits. ChatGPT visits show chatgpt.com as the source.
- Check Perplexity on its own. Google's documentation doesn't name it, so filter Session source for perplexity.ai and see which channel those visits land in.
- For any trend that starts before 13 May 2026, filter on Session source rather than the channel, which didn't exist then. Use a regular expression that joins the assistant names with vertical bars, such as chatgpt|perplexity|gemini|claude, and add copilot, deepseek and grok the same way.
- Mark the actions that make money, such as an enquiry, a booking or a purchase, as key events. Then compare the AI Assistant channel's key event rate with organic search, and judge it on enquiries, not visits.
Expect an undercount. Visits from inside apps and from copied links can arrive with no referrer and land in Direct, as Seer Interactive's guide to tracking AI traffic notes. And if the GA4 set-up underneath can't be trusted, fix that first; our GA4 and Google Tag Manager consultant page explains what that involves.
Two other reports fill the gaps. Search Console's Generative AI performance report, rolled out to every site by 31 August 2026, shows how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, device and date. It reports impressions only; the clicks stay in the main Performance report. Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report covers Copilot citations.
What is AI search optimisation called?
It goes by several names: AI search optimisation, AEO (answer engine optimisation), GEO (generative engine optimisation), LLM SEO, ChatGPT SEO and AI SEO. They all describe the same job, and Google's position is that, for its own search, it is still SEO. Our guides to AEO vs SEO and GEO vs SEO explain the labels and where they came from.
What is the best AI for search engine optimisation?
The best AI tool for SEO is the one whose work you check. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are all good at first drafts, sorting a list of questions into topics, writing schema markup and comparing what rival pages say. None of them can see inside Google: Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems, so be wary of any tool that claims otherwise.
How do you get into the AI Overview?
You can't apply for it, because Google picks the sources for each answer. What you can do is meet the conditions above, make your page the clearest answer to one of the questions behind the search, and then watch the Generative AI performance report to see whether your pages start to appear.
To have this measured and managed for you, start with our AI SEO agency page, or book a profit audit: free, 30 minutes with a senior operator, and written findings you keep whether or not we work together.
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