25 September 2026
When you ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for a restaurant, a dentist or a gym in your city, the answer names two or three businesses. AI picks them based on what it can read on the web. If it doesn't recommend your business, the cause is almost never the quality of your service: it's the information AI can, or can't, find.
1. Your website shuts AI crawlers out
One line in the robots.txt file is enough to stop ChatGPT from reading your site. Sometimes it was added on purpose, years ago, against other kinds of bots; other times it comes from a hosting setting. What to do: ask whoever manages your site to let in GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
2. The content only appears with JavaScript
Some websites only show their text after the browser runs JavaScript. AI crawlers usually don't run it and see an almost empty page, with the business name and little else. What to do: the main pages should carry their text in the HTML itself, which server-side rendering takes care of.
3. Your business details are missing
Without schema.org markup (LocalBusiness), AI has to guess from loose text what the business is, where it is and when it opens. What to do: add a JSON-LD block to the home page with the type of business, address, phone and opening hours. It isn't visible on the site and takes minutes to add.
4. Your website doesn't say which city you're in
Someone asking “what's the best hair salon in Bath?” only gets businesses AI can connect to Bath. If the city only appears in an image, on a map or in small print in the footer, that may not be enough. What to do: write the city, as text, on the home page, next to what the business does.
5. There's little information about the business outside your site
AI trusts businesses more when it finds consistent information about them in several places. An incomplete Google Business Profile, few reviews, or names and addresses that differ from site to site make AI hesitate. What to do: complete your Google profile, ask happy customers for reviews and use the same name, address and phone number everywhere.
Where to start
The first three reasons can be checked on your own website and are usually the quickest to fix. The free Chatlisted scan checks them for you, asks AI about your business and shows who shows up instead of you. The paid plans come with every fix ready to use, already filled in with your business details, to send to whoever manages your site.
Get your free scan or read the guide How to show up in ChatGPT answers.