How to get cited in ChatGPT and Perplexity
TL;DR
- ChatGPT (with search), Perplexity and Copilot lean on the Bing index - being in Bing is half the battle.
- You need entity authority and citable content, with data and sources.
- Being cited by credible third parties raises your odds of entering answers.
- Verify with a fixed prompt protocol, tested monthly.
To be cited in ChatGPT and Perplexity, you have to exist where they source information and produce content they can extract and attribute. There's no magic button - there's a method.
How they choose sources
Perplexity uses the Bing index plus its own crawls, and cites explicitly. ChatGPT with search also leans on Bing; without search, it depends on training data. Copilot is Bing. Conclusion: Bing is the common denominator.
Practical steps
- Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account and submit your sitemap.
- Strengthen your entity: Person/Organization with sameAs, ideally Wikidata.
- Write citable content: direct answer up top, definitions, sourced data, an FAQ.
- Earn citations from credible third parties.
- Publish an llms.txt pointing to your key pages.
How to verify
Define a fixed set of questions in your domain and test them on each platform monthly. Log: mentioned, not mentioned, or mentioned incorrectly. That's your GEO baseline.
Platform by platform, in more depth
Perplexity is the most transparent: it cites sources inline, leans on Bing plus its own crawl, and rewards clean, quotable pages with clear sourcing. It's the best place to see whether your citable-content work is landing. Copilot is Bing through and through - if you're indexed and trusted in Bing, you have a real shot. ChatGPT behaves in two modes: with search enabled it resembles Perplexity/Bing; without it, it draws on training data, where being widely and consistently referenced across the web historically matters more than any single tactic. Knowing which engine you're optimizing for changes the move.
Building the entity (the part people skip)
Citable content gets you quoted; a strong entity gets you trusted enough to quote. Make sure the web agrees on who you are: the same name and role on your site, LinkedIn and any third-party profiles; Person and Organization markup with a reused @id; sameAs to authoritative pages; and, where genuinely warranted, a Wikidata item. Inconsistency here quietly caps everything else.
A monthly monitoring routine you'll actually keep
- Keep a fixed list of 15-30 domain questions - don't change them, or you lose comparability.
- Once a month, run them on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini.
- Record three states: mentioned, absent, or mentioned incorrectly (the last is urgent).
- Note which URL, if any, was cited - that tells you what content earns citations.
- Track the trend, not a single month - GEO moves slowly and noisily.
What doesn't move the needle
To save you the detours I've already taken: keyword-stuffing does nothing for AI (arguably the opposite); buying "AI SEO" packages that promise guaranteed citations is money lit on fire; and obsessing over one platform while ignoring Bing is the most common own goal. There's no shortcut - just an entity worth trusting and content worth quoting, verified over time.
Key data
| ChatGPT — weekly actives | 800M |
|---|---|
| Gen AI referrals in one month (Jun 2025) | 1,1B |
| Perplexity — queries/month | 780M |
| ChatGPT users who still use Google | ~95% |
Similarweb figures are proprietary estimates.
Sources: TechCrunch / OpenAI · Similarweb
Common mistakes and how to do it right
Nobody buys a spot in ChatGPT. But there's a method - and mistakes I've made for you:
| Avoid | Do |
|---|---|
| ✗ Ignoring Bing Webmaster Tools | ✓ Submitting your site to Bing: the common denominator of Perplexity, Copilot and ChatGPT |
| ✗ Writing content with no sources or data | ✓ Citing sources and giving concrete data - AI prefers the verifiable |
| ✗ A fuzzy entity with inconsistent name/role | ✓ Consolidating Person/Organization, sameAs and, if possible, Wikidata |
| ✗ Thinking a citation is forever | ✓ Monitoring monthly with a fixed set of prompts |
Tools I use and recommend
- PerplexityAnswer engine with sources, useful for research and GEO.
- ChatGPTAI assistant for research, analysis and quick audits.
- GeminiGoogle's AI assistant, grounded in Search.
- Google Search ConsoleOrganic performance, coverage and field Core Web Vitals.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
How long until I show up?
It depends on authority and Bing indexing. It's medium-term work, not a switch. GEO guide →
Do I need to be in Google to be cited by AI?
It helps, especially for Gemini. But for Perplexity and Copilot, Bing is what counts. See service →