# How to get your products recommended by ChatGPT

> What decides which stores ChatGPT recommends, and seven things an online store can do about it, from robots.txt and product data to reviews.

Source: https://overthefence.io/blog/how-to-get-recommended-by-chatgpt · Published 2026-10-03 · By Denis Vodisek, founder of Over the Fence

More shoppers now ask ChatGPT what to buy before they search Google. Here’s what decides which stores it names, and what you can do this week to be one of them.

ChatGPT now answers shopping questions with named products, prices and links to the stores that sell them. Ask it for “a good burr grinder under $100” and it may show a carousel of grinders and, when you open one, the stores that carry it. Your store is either in that answer or it isn’t, and there is no second page to scroll to.

There is no trick that puts you there. But ChatGPT can only recommend what it can read, trust and match to the question, and each of those is something a store can work on. This guide covers what OpenAI has said about how it works, and seven things to do about it.

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**The short version:**

1. Let OpenAI’s search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, read your site.
2. Put each product’s facts on the page in plain words and in structured data.
3. Get your catalog to ChatGPT directly, through Shopify or OpenAI’s product feed.
4. Be talked about on the sites ChatGPT reads: reviews, forums and buying guides.
5. Answer the questions shoppers ask, on your own pages.
6. Keep your prices and stock accurate everywhere.
7. Check which stores ChatGPT names instead of you, every week.

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## How ChatGPT decides which products and stores to show

ChatGPT answers from two places. One is what the model learned in training, which is fixed until the next model comes out. The other is search: when a question needs current information, like prices or what’s in stock, ChatGPT searches the web and reads pages as it answers.

For shopping, search is what matters. OpenAI runs a separate crawler for it, [OAI-SearchBot](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots), and its documentation is blunt about what blocking it does: sites that opt out “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.”

When ChatGPT shows a product, it can list the stores that sell it. [OpenAI’s shopping help page](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/11128490-shopping-in-chatgpt) says that list comes from product and merchant data, from third-party providers or from the merchants themselves, and that stores are ranked on things like availability, price, quality and whether the store is the maker or main seller of the item. It also says product results are chosen by ChatGPT and aren’t ads.

So there are three levers: can ChatGPT read you, does it have accurate data about your products, and do other sources give it reason to trust you.

## 1. Let OpenAI’s crawlers in

Open `yourstore.com/robots.txt` and look for these names. OpenAI documents three that matter here:

| Crawler | What it’s for | If you block it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| OAI-SearchBot | ChatGPT’s search answers | You won’t be shown in ChatGPT search answers |
| GPTBot | Training OpenAI’s models | Your pages aren’t used for training. Search is unaffected |
| ChatGPT-User | Pages a user asks ChatGPT to open | User-initiated, so robots.txt may not apply |

A store that wants to be recommended should allow OAI-SearchBot at the very least. Then check your host or CDN. Some offer a one-click setting that blocks AI crawlers, and it can block search crawlers along with training ones. If your robots.txt looks fine but you never appear, that setting is the first place to look.

A last technical check: open a product page with JavaScript turned off. If the price and the description vanish, crawlers that don’t run JavaScript see an empty page too.

## 2. Put each product’s facts on the page

AI answers lean on facts they can quote: price, size, material, fit, weight, compatibility, what’s in the box, who it’s for. Marketing copy is hard to quote. “Crafted for the modern explorer” tells a model nothing. “Waterproof to 10,000 mm, 1.2 lb, packs into its own pocket” answers three questions.

Two places to put those facts:

- **On the page, in words.** A short spec table and one or two plain sentences near the top. Write the sentence you’d want quoted.
- **In structured data.** Product markup with name, brand, price, currency, availability, GTIN or SKU, and reviews if you have them. Most store platforms add the basics, so check yours is complete and matches the page.

Then compare yourself with the stores ChatGPT does name. Open their product pages for the same item. What do they state that you don’t? That gap is usually the fastest fix.

## 3. Get your catalog to ChatGPT directly

You don’t have to wait to be crawled.

- **Shopify stores.** Since March 24, 2026, products from eligible Shopify stores can be found and bought through ChatGPT via Shopify’s catalog, with checkout on the store’s own site ([Digital Commerce 360, March 25, 2026](https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2026/03/25/shopify-brands-shoppable-inside-chatgpt-integration/)). Check your Shopify admin for whether your store is included and how your products appear.
- **Everyone else.** OpenAI publishes a [product feed specification](https://developers.openai.com/commerce/guides/get-started) for sending a catalog to ChatGPT: titles, descriptions, images, prices and availability, refreshed at least daily. Onboarding is open to approved partners, and you apply at [chatgpt.com/merchants](https://chatgpt.com/merchants).

Either way, the data has to be right. A feed that says in stock when the page says sold out is the kind of mismatch that costs trust.

[Try Over the Fence on your own site](https://overthefence.io/start)

## 4. Be talked about where ChatGPT reads

When ChatGPT searches, it doesn’t only read stores. It reads reviews, forums, magazine roundups and comparison articles, and it tends to recommend what several independent sources agree on.

This is the slow part, and it can’t be faked:

- **Reviews.** On your own pages and on the review sites people in your category use.
- **Buying guides.** Get your products in front of the people who write “best X for Y” roundups in your niche. Send samples, answer questions, correct mistakes.
- **Forums and communities.** Be useful where your buyers ask questions. Don’t post ads.
- **Find the sources that cite your competitors.** The quickest list of sites to work on is the sites AI answers already cite for your searches, for a rival and not for you.

## 5. Answer the questions shoppers ask

Shoppers ask ChatGPT questions they’d never type into a search box: “I have wide feet and run on trails, which shoe?” The stores that get named often have a page that answers a version of that question.

Write those pages. A sizing guide that says who each size suits. A comparison of your own products. A “which one should I buy” page for your category. An FAQ with real answers. Each should start with the answer in one or two sentences, then explain.

## 6. Keep prices and stock accurate everywhere

ChatGPT ranks stores partly on price and availability. If your page, your structured data, your Google Merchant Center feed and your ChatGPT feed disagree, at least one of them is wrong, and an answer may quote the wrong one. Make one system the source of truth and keep the rest in step with it.

## 7. Check what ChatGPT says about you and your competitors

You can’t improve what you don’t look at. Ask ChatGPT the questions your buyers ask, in the country you sell in, and note which stores it names and which sources it cites. Do it again next week. The stores it names instead of you, and the pages it quotes from them, are your to-do list.

Doing that by hand for dozens of questions gets old fast. Google’s AI Overviews answer the same kind of question at the top of Google, and [Over the Fence](/ai-visibility) checks those every week: how often they cite your store against each competitor, with the questions and the sources behind each count. We don’t track ChatGPT itself yet. For that, ask it yourself or use a prompt tracker such as OtterlyAI or Peec AI, both in our [comparison of monitoring tools](/blog/competitor-monitoring-tools).

## What doesn’t work

- **Writing for the model instead of the shopper.** Stuffing pages with “best” and question phrases reads badly to people and gives a model no new facts.
- **Fake reviews and planted forum posts.** They break platform rules, and they get spotted.
- **Hidden text and cloaking.** Showing crawlers one page and people another is the oldest trick in search, and search engines treat it as spam.
- **Treating llms.txt as a ranking switch.** There’s no public evidence OpenAI uses it to choose recommendations. Publish one because it’s cheap and helps some agents, then spend the time on your product pages.

## A checklist for this week

| Check | How |
| --- | --- |
| OAI-SearchBot is allowed | Read your robots.txt, then your CDN’s bot settings |
| Product pages work without JavaScript | Turn JavaScript off and reload a product page |
| Each product states its facts | A spec table and a plain first sentence |
| Structured data is complete | Price, currency, availability, brand, GTIN, reviews |
| Your catalog reaches ChatGPT | Shopify’s catalog, or apply for OpenAI’s product feed |
| Prices and stock agree everywhere | Page, markup, Merchant Center and feeds |
| You know who ChatGPT names instead of you | Ask your buyers’ questions, or track them weekly |

## Questions

### How long does it take to show up in ChatGPT?

For ChatGPT’s search answers, as long as it takes OpenAI’s search crawler to read your pages and other sites to mention you. That can be weeks. What the model knows without searching comes from its training data, which is fixed until the next model, so it can take months or more.

### Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?

OpenAI runs ads in ChatGPT, and its crawler docs name a separate bot, OAI-AdsBot, that checks ad landing pages. An ad is a labeled, paid placement. OpenAI’s shopping help page says its product results are selected independently and aren’t ads, so the recommendation itself isn’t for sale.

### Should I block GPTBot?

Only if you don’t want your pages used to train OpenAI’s models. Blocking GPTBot doesn’t keep you out of ChatGPT’s search answers. That’s OAI-SearchBot, and OpenAI says sites that block it won’t be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Most stores that want to be recommended allow both.

### Does llms.txt help me rank in ChatGPT?

There’s no public evidence that OpenAI uses llms.txt to choose what to recommend. It’s a short Markdown guide to your website that some AI agents read. It costs an hour to write, so it’s worth having, but it won’t fix pages that don’t state their facts.

### Is SEO for ChatGPT different from regular SEO?

Mostly it’s the same work with a different weight on each part. Crawlable pages, clear facts and a good reputation help in both. ChatGPT leans harder on plain, quotable statements and on what other sites say about you, and it can’t click through a slow or JavaScript-only page.