How to get cited by Perplexity and ChatGPT
By Nick Albertini · Updated
Being named by an assistant is good. Being cited, with a link to your site, is better: it sends visitors and tells readers the assistant relied on you. These are the changes most likely to get you there, in the order to do them.
What does it mean to be cited by an AI assistant?
It means the assistant lists one of your pages as a source for its answer, usually as a numbered link or a link beside a claim. Perplexity cites in almost every answer. ChatGPT cites when it searches the web, which it does for most questions about products and services.
An assistant can only cite a page it found and read for that question. So the work is in two parts: being readable, and having the page that best answers the question.
Can AI crawlers read my site?
Check your robots.txt first. If it blocks GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot or Google-Extended, those assistants may be unable to read or cite your pages. Many sites block them by accident through a security plugin or a copied template, so look even if you never changed it.
Allowing them is a few lines in robots.txt. You can keep private areas like account pages blocked while leaving your public pages open. An llms.txt file at the root of your site, a short plain-text summary with links to your key pages, is an emerging convention that some tools already read.
What kind of page gets cited?
A page that answers one question directly, near the top, in plain words. Phrase headings as the questions customers ask, and put a short, complete answer of a sentence or two right under each heading. Assistants quote and link pages they can lift a clear answer from.
Detail and evidence belong after the direct answer: prices, examples, steps and comparisons. Pages that open with a long introduction or hide the answer inside an image or an accordion that loads later are harder for assistants to use.
Does structured data help assistants cite me?
It helps them understand who you are, which makes your pages easier to trust and match. Add schema.org Organization or LocalBusiness markup to your homepage, and FAQPage, Article or Product markup where it fits. It will not earn citations alone, but it removes doubt about what your pages describe.
Keep the markup consistent with what the page says. Your name, address and phone in the markup should match the visible page and your listings elsewhere.
Do other websites need to mention me?
Yes, mentions elsewhere make a big difference. Assistants cross-check, and they often cite review sites, industry lists and comparison articles. Being named on the sites that already appear in answers for your questions makes it more likely you are named, and that your own site is read and cited too.
Look at which sources assistants cite for your questions today. Those are the publications, directories and review platforms to approach first.
How long does it take to start getting cited?
Changes to your own site can show up within a few weeks, once assistants and search indexes recrawl it. Mentions on other sites and changes to an assistant's general knowledge take longer, often months. Measure before you start and again a month later to see what moved.
A Mentioned report gives you that baseline: your score, how often each assistant names and cites you, and the fixes most likely to change it.
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A free snapshot asks ChatGPT one of your customers' questions and scores the answer in about a minute.
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