Quick answer. AI assistants and AI search features find a local business by reading public web pages they're allowed to crawl, plus the business details you publish. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet. OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity each name the crawlers they use for search, for fetching pages when a person asks, and (for OpenAI and Anthropic) for training. Enter your address below to see which of them your robots.txt allows, whether the page tells search engines to stay away, and whether your business details are marked up clearly. No one can promise you'll be mentioned or cited.
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The crawlers this checks
Each company publishes the names its crawlers use in robots.txt. The checker reads your file the way Google's robots.txt spec describes: a crawler follows the group that names it, or the * group if none does, and the longest matching rule wins.
| Crawler | Used for | What its owner says |
|---|---|---|
Googlebot | Search answers | Google Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google says Googlebot's robots.txt rules control crawling for Search. Doc |
Google-Extended | Training / grounding | A control token for Gemini model training and grounding. Google says it does not affect inclusion in Google Search and is not a ranking signal. Doc |
bingbotMicrosoft Bing | Search answers | Bing's search crawler. Bing has said bingbot follows only the robots.txt group written for it when one exists. Doc |
OAI-SearchBotOpenAI | Search answers | ChatGPT search. OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers, apart from navigational links. Doc |
ChatGPT-UserOpenAI | Fetches when a person asks | Visits a page when a ChatGPT user's request needs it. OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply to these visits. Doc |
GPTBotOpenAI | Training / grounding | Collects content that may be used to train OpenAI's models. OpenAI says each of its settings is independent of the others. Doc |
Claude-SearchBotAnthropic | Search answers | Improves search results for Claude users. Anthropic says blocking it may reduce your visibility in user search results. Doc |
Claude-UserAnthropic | Fetches when a person asks | Fetches pages when Claude users ask questions. Anthropic says blocking it prevents retrieval of your content for those questions. Doc |
ClaudeBotAnthropic | Training / grounding | Collects web content that could contribute to Anthropic's model training. Doc |
PerplexityBotPerplexity | Search answers | Surfaces and links websites in Perplexity's search results. Perplexity says it is not used to train AI foundation models. Doc |
Perplexity-UserPerplexity | Fetches when a person asks | Visits pages for user actions in Perplexity. Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt rules because a person asked. Doc |
OpenAI and Perplexity say robots.txt changes can take about 24 hours to show up in their systems. Anthropic says its bots honor robots.txt, including the non-standard Crawl-delay rule.
What Google says about AI Overviews and AI Mode
- To be a supporting link, "a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet." Google says indexing and serving aren't guaranteed.
- "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." Google says "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features."
- Google's best practices include allowing crawling, making important content available as text, keeping structured data consistent with what's visible on the page, and keeping your Business Profile up to date.
- To limit what appears, Google points to
nosnippet,data-nosnippet,max-snippetandnoindex. Its robots meta spec saysnosnippet"will also prevent the content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode." - Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in Search Console's Performance report, under the "Web" search type.
Your business details: markup and Google Business Profile
LocalBusiness markup is a block of JSON-LD that states your name, address, phone and hours in a form machines read easily. For LocalBusiness, Google lists name and address as required and recommends telephone, openingHoursSpecification, url and geo, among others, using the most specific subtype you can. For Organization, it recommends sameAs links to your profiles on other sites. Google adds that it "does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results." Our LocalBusiness schema generator writes the block for you.
For your Google Business Profile, Google's guidelines say your name "should reflect your business's real-world name," to use "a precise, accurate address and/or service area," that a service-area business should hide its address, and that the phone number must be under your direct control. Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." Use the same name, address and phone on your site, your profile and your listings. Work through it with our Google Business Profile checklist.
Reviews are part of prominence. Google's review policy prohibits offering incentives "in exchange for posting any review" and asking only happy customers ("selectively solicit positive reviews"). Make a direct review link with our review link and QR code tool, ask every customer, and reply to reviews.
About llms.txt
llms.txt is a community proposal to put a Markdown summary of a site at /llms.txt. The proposal calls itself "A proposal to standardise on using an /llms.txt file"; it is not a web standard, and none of the crawler documentation we checked from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity or Bing says their systems use it. The checker reports whether you have one, and doesn't mark you down if you don't.
Check what assistants actually say, once a month
- Write down 5 to 10 questions a customer would ask, such as "best [service] near [town]" or "who does [job] in [county] on weekends".
- Ask each assistant you care about the same questions in the same week, signed out or in a fresh chat where you can.
- Record whether your business was named or linked, which competitors were, and which pages were cited.
- Fix what's in your control (crawler access, business details, reviews, missing pages for services you offer) and check again next month. Answers vary from one ask to the next, so look at the trend, not one answer.
Sources
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Google: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications
- Google: How Google interprets the robots.txt specification
- Google: List of Google's common crawlers (Googlebot and Google-Extended)
- Google: Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data
- Google: Organization structured data
- Google: Influencing your title links in search results
- Google: Control your snippets in search results
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers
- Anthropic: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?
- Perplexity: Perplexity Crawlers
- Bing Webmaster Blog: To crawl or not to crawl, that is BingBot's question (May 3, 2012)
- Bing Webmaster Blog: Announcing new options for webmasters to control usage of their content in Bing Chat (September 22, 2023)
- Schema.org: LocalBusiness
- Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google
- Google Business Profile Help: How to improve your local ranking on Google
- Google Maps user-generated content policy: Prohibited & restricted content
- llmstxt.org: The /llms.txt file (a proposal)
Checked November 2026 against each company's own documentation. General information, not legal or marketing advice. Not affiliated with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic or Perplexity. This tool reads technical signals only; it can't measure or promise rankings, mentions or citations in any assistant or search engine.
Common questions
How do ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity find local businesses?
Each company documents named crawlers. OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search, Anthropic uses Claude-SearchBot, and Perplexity uses PerplexityBot to surface sites in its results. Each also has an agent that fetches a page when a person asks, and OpenAI and Anthropic have separate training crawlers. Your robots.txt decides which of the crawlers that follow it may read your site.
Do I need anything special to appear in Google's AI Overviews or AI Mode?
Google says no. A page has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, and "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." Google also says there's no special schema.org structured data you need to add.
If I block GPTBot or ClaudeBot, will I disappear from ChatGPT or Claude?
Not according to their documentation. OpenAI says each of its settings is independent, with OAI-SearchBot for search and GPTBot for training. Anthropic lists Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User separately from its training crawler, ClaudeBot. Blocking the search crawlers is what their owners say can reduce your visibility.
Does blocking Google-Extended hurt my Google ranking?
Google says Google-Extended "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal in Google Search." It controls use of your content for Gemini training and grounding.
Should I add an llms.txt file?
It's optional. llms.txt is a community proposal, not a standard, and none of the crawler documentation we checked from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity or Bing says it is used. Google says you don't need AI text files for AI Overviews or AI Mode. It does no harm if you want one.
Can this checker tell me whether an assistant will recommend my business?
No, and nobody can promise that. This checks what crawlers are allowed to read and whether your business details are clear and consistent. To see what assistants actually say, ask them the questions your customers ask, every month, and write down the answers.
Related free tools: website basics check · LocalBusiness schema generator · Google Business Profile checklist · review link and QR code · search result preview