How to Get Your Website Into ChatGPT Search and Microsoft Copilot

Why the Bing index matters for AI search

ChatGPT Search combines OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, with results from search partners — most notably Microsoft Bing. Microsoft Copilot is built directly on Bing, and Bing's index also supplies results to DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and Ecosia. So if Bing hasn't indexed a page, it's missing from a large slice of both classic and AI search at once — even if it ranks well on Google.

Step 1: Don't block the crawlers AI search depends on

Check your robots.txt and any firewall or bot-protection rules. OAI-SearchBot is what surfaces sites in ChatGPT's search answers — OpenAI states that sites blocking it won't be shown there. GPTBot is different: it only collects content for model training, so you can block it without affecting ChatGPT Search. Also allow Bingbot. If your site is behind Cloudflare, review its AI crawler settings: training crawlers may be blocked by default, and a blanket "block AI bots" rule can accidentally block search crawlers too.

Step 2: Get your pages into Bing quickly

• Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your XML sitemap there — it's free and gives you Bing's own view of your pages.
• Notify Bing the moment a page is published or updated with IndexNow. One ping reaches Bing and every other participating engine (Yandex, Naver, Seznam and Yep), instead of waiting for the next routine crawl.
• Keep pages fast and server-rendered. Content that only appears after JavaScript runs is harder for search and AI crawlers to read reliably.

Step 3: Confirm it worked

Use URL Inspection in Bing Webmaster Tools to see whether Bing has indexed a page, or search site:yourdomain.com/your-page on Bing. Google is a separate index: IndexNow doesn't reach it, so check Google with Search Console or our free Google Index Checker.

What makes AI search actually cite a page

Being indexed makes a page eligible; it doesn't guarantee a citation. AI answers favour pages that state a clear answer early, use descriptive headings, keep facts and dates current, and come from a site with a consistent topical focus. Structured data helps crawlers understand what a page is about, and plain, well-organised HTML is easier to quote accurately than content buried in scripts or images.

What doesn't work

There's no way to pay for inclusion in ChatGPT Search or Copilot answers, and repeatedly resubmitting the same unchanged URL doesn't move it up any queue. Blocking OAI-SearchBot or Bingbot — often by accident, through an over-broad bot rule — is the most common reason a good page never shows up in AI search at all.