Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT (NZ)

Why ChatGPT recommends some businesses and not others

When someone asks ChatGPT for "a good mechanic in New Lynn" or "who can fix a sliding door in Tauranga", it usually searches the web first, reads a handful of the pages it finds, and then writes an answer naming one to three businesses. It favours businesses whose pages directly answer the question, whose details agree across several sources, and which other sites and reviewers mention. Nobody can buy their way into that answer. Every step below makes your business easier to find, easier to understand, or easier to trust.

Step 1: Let the AI crawlers in

Each AI company uses named crawlers, and your robots.txt file tells them whether they are welcome. For ChatGPT the important one is OAI-SearchBot, which fetches pages for ChatGPT's search answers. GPTBot is a separate crawler that collects training data, and blocking it does not remove you from ChatGPT's search results. The search crawlers to allow are OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot, plus Googlebot and Bingbot as usual. ChatGPT-User, Perplexity-User and Claude-User work differently: they fetch a page only when a person asks the AI to look at it, rather than building a search index. Allow them too, but they are not what decides whether you appear.

Then check your hosting. Cloudflare has a setting that blocks AI bots and can add blocking rules to the robots.txt it serves, whatever your own file says. We turn it off for every client site we launch, because a site that blocks these crawlers cannot be cited by the tools behind them.

Step 2: Make sure your words exist without JavaScript

Many AI crawlers read the raw HTML your server sends and never run the scripts that build the page in a browser. If your site is assembled by JavaScript, those crawlers can see an almost empty page. We found exactly this on Levr, a New Zealand vehicle finance site: fetched as OpenAI's crawler, a landing page returned 30 characters and no heading, even though it looked complete in a browser. Once the build was changed to write the finished page into the HTML, the same fetch returned 1,360 characters and a proper heading. To test your own site, view the page source (not the inspector) and check that your headings and main text appear in it.

Step 3: Be findable in Bing as well as Google

Most New Zealand businesses only ever check Google. That leaves a gap, because Microsoft Copilot runs on Bing's index and ChatGPT's search has drawn heavily on Bing results. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools, which can import your Google Search Console settings in a couple of minutes, and submit your sitemap there too. Bing also supports IndexNow, which lets your site notify it the moment a page changes. A page Bing has never indexed is a page ChatGPT may never read.

Step 4: One business, one set of details, everywhere

An AI tool has to be sure that the business on your website, the one on Google Maps and the one in a directory are the same. Use identical wording for your name, street address and phone number on your website, your Google Business Profile, Facebook and the main New Zealand directories. Small differences, such as "Ltd" on one listing, an old address on another or a different phone number, make the AI less confident, and a less confident AI tends to name someone else.

On your website, add LocalBusiness structured data (or a more specific type such as Plumber or AutoRepair) with a sameAs list linking to your official profiles. Established businesses can also be added to Wikidata, the open database that Google's Knowledge Graph and many AI tools draw on. We added Webgun's own Wikidata entry and linked it from our structured data for exactly this reason.

Step 5: Give every common question its own page

ChatGPT answers specific questions, so it needs pages that answer specific questions. A single "Services" page listing twelve jobs cannot be the best answer to any one of them. iRepair, a phone and laptop repair shop in Avondale, Auckland, has a separate page for each device and repair type, fifteen in all, so "iPhone screen repair in Auckland" and "MacBook repair in Auckland" each have a page written for them. Window and Door Rescue in Tauranga went further and wrote its pages around repair rather than replacement, so an AI asked about fixing a sticking sliding door finds a business that does exactly that, instead of one that sells new doors.

Step 6: Give the AI something specific to quote

AI tools skip adjectives and quote facts. "Friendly, reliable service" gives ChatGPT nothing to repeat. "Most repairs done in under 45 minutes, with a 90-day warranty" does. Put the facts customers weigh up in the first sentence of each section: suburbs you cover, turnaround times, certifications and the standards you work to, opening hours, and prices if you publish them. Precision Automotive in New Lynn publishes indicative prices for common jobs like a WoF and a service, so an AI asked what a WoF costs in New Lynn has a real number to quote and a business to credit for it. Finish important pages with a short FAQ marked up with FAQPage structured data, answering the questions customers actually ask in one or two sentences each.

Step 7: Earn reviews and mentions beyond your own site

Your website says what you do. Other sources confirm it. AI tools are far more willing to recommend a business that reviewers, directories, local news, industry bodies and "best of" lists also talk about. Ask every happy customer for a Google review and reply to each one. Make sure you are listed, with identical details, on the directories that matter in your trade. Local roundup articles carry real weight too. Our own "best web design agencies in Henderson" article sits among Google's top five results for "web design henderson", and our Google Business Profile, with its reviews, holds first place in the map results for that search (September 2026). Those are exactly the sources an AI reads before it names anyone.

How to check whether it is working

Pick five to ten questions a real customer would ask, such as "best plumber in Hamilton for a burst pipe" or "who does ceramic coating in West Auckland". Ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google every month, and save the answers. In Google Analytics, watch for referral visits from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai. ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to many of its links, so those visits are easy to spot. Answers change from one run to the next, so judge progress over two or three months rather than on any single day.