AI visibility, answer engines, and the future of brand discovery.

Googlebot is Google Search’s documented crawler, while Google-Extended is a robots.txt control for specified AI training and grounding uses of crawled content, including documented Gemini-related applications.

GPTBot may support training-related use, OAI-SearchBot supports ChatGPT search, and ChatGPT-User retrieves pages after user requests. Robots.txt controls are documented for the first two, while ChatGPT-User policy remains unresolved.

AI crawlers are automated clients whose roles vary across training, search indexing, user-triggered retrieval, and product control; user-agent strings, robots.txt, logs, and IP checks provide useful but limited evidence.

An AI discoverability self-audit tests technical retrievability, answer appearance, citation, and accurate representation separately using fixed prompts, documented evidence, entity checks, and cautious retesting.

AI discoverability is the layered process by which systems acquire information, interpret entities, retrieve relevant material, select sources, and present claims in generated answers; technical accessibility supports eligibility but never guarantees citation, recommendation, traffic, or influence.

Publishing Markdown mirrors of your web pages for AI search visibility is a waste of time. Here's why AI crawlers stick to HTML, and what you should focus on instead.

Learn how to get cited by ChatGPT with practical fixes for crawlability, page structure, schema, and off-site authority.