InSyncHow to Check Whether ChatGPT Sees Your Business: 5 Minutes, Free
Anton Tysiachnik, founder of InSync AgencyUpdated: 30 September 20266 min readOpen ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini in a clean or temporary chat and ask them the questions your customers ask before they buy. Write down who gets named and which sources are cited. Then open robots.txt, llms.txt and sitemap.xml on your site and check your Schema.org markup: that tells you whether AI assistants can see you and what's getting in the way.
Why should you test in a clean chat?
AI assistants take context into account. If you've asked about your company before, discussed your website or have memory turned on, the answer will be tailored to you. Your customer, meanwhile, will see a very different picture.
Before you start:
- in ChatGPT, open a temporary chat or turn off memory in settings;
- in Gemini and Perplexity, start a new chat with no history, ideally in an incognito window and signed out;
- don't mention your company in category questions;
- phrase each question the way a customer would: with their city and in their language.
Test with web search turned on. Without search, a model answers from its training data, and newer businesses may simply not show up.
What questions should you ask AI assistants?
Pull questions from real customer chats and calls: what people ask before they buy. Sort them into four types.
| Question type | Example | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Category | “Recommend a Ukrainian-speaking dentist in Toronto” | Whether you get named without a prompt |
| Problem | “Where can I get an iPhone fixed urgently in Kyiv on a weekend” | Whether you show up for a specific customer task |
| Brand | “What do you know about [your company]: services, prices, address, reviews” | Whether the model knows you and gets the facts right |
| Comparison | “[Your company] or [competitor]: which should I choose” | How you're positioned next to competitors |
Category questions matter most: that's how a customer searches before they know you exist. Brand questions show whether the model mixes up facts about your company.
What should you record?
Set up a simple table: one row per question, a separate block for each AI assistant. Track five things.
| What to record | Why |
|---|---|
| Is your business named | The core visibility signal |
| Where it appears in the list | Customers read the top entries more closely than the rest |
| Who is named instead of you or alongside you | The competitors you share answers with |
| Which sources are cited | Where the model gets its information: your site, directories, Google Maps, media, forums |
| Are the facts about you correct | Prices, address, opening hours, list of services |
Perplexity shows sources next to its answer. ChatGPT provides links when it answers with search. If no sources appear, follow up with “Which websites did you rely on?” The answer isn't always accurate, but it points you in the right direction.
Want to know where your website stands today? Free 60-second AI visibility audit in Telegram.
Check my siteHow do you read the results?
You'll usually see one of three patterns.
- You're missing from both category and brand answers. The AI knows almost nothing about you. Start with your site's technical foundation and with pages that answer customer questions.
- You're known for brand questions but not named for category ones. Your site is readable, but there aren't enough external mentions. We see exactly this on our own site, insync.com.ua: for 4 out of 4 brand queries ChatGPT knows the agency and describes its positioning, but for “best agency…” queries it doesn't name us yet.
- You're named, but with mistakes. Old prices, a previous address, the wrong services. That means the sources the model relies on hold outdated data, and you need to find and fix them.
Also look at the sources cited alongside your competitors. If the model points to directories, Google Maps reviews or industry roundups, you should be there too. For a detailed breakdown, see our guide why ChatGPT recommends your competitors instead of you.
Which files and tags should you check on your site?
The second part of the check happens in an ordinary browser. Open each of these in turn:
| What to open | What you should see |
|---|---|
| yoursite.com/robots.txt | The file loads. GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended are not blocked by a Disallow rule |
| yoursite.com/llms.txt | A text file describing the business with links to key pages. A 404 error means the file doesn't exist |
| yoursite.com/sitemap.xml | A list of pages with current dates. robots.txt points to the sitemap |
| Home page source code | Title and meta description are filled in, and there's an application/ld+json block with Schema.org markup: organization, address, contacts |
| FAQ page | FAQPage markup is present |
In Chrome, view the source with Ctrl+U on Windows or Cmd+Option+U on Mac. Search the page for “ld+json”, “title” and “description”. We cover what llms.txt is and how to write one in a separate guide, what llms.txt is and whether your site needs it.
What if you're not in the answers?
- Open access for AI crawlers in robots.txt if it's blocked.
- Add Schema.org markup with your company details, plus FAQ markup on pages with questions.
- Create llms.txt with a business description and a list of key pages.
- Write pages that directly answer the questions on your list: the answer in the first paragraph, details after.
- Align your data everywhere: name, address and phone number must match on your site, in Google Maps and in directories.
- A month later, ask the same questions and compare the tables.
Results take time. Mentions in answers usually appear within 2–4 months, and nobody can guarantee the top spot in ChatGPT. The full plan is in our guide how to get into ChatGPT answers.
Want it faster? A free 60-second audit
The manual check is valuable because you see the AI answers with your own eyes. The technical part is easier to hand to a machine.
The GEO Autopilot home page links to a free AI visibility audit in our Telegram bot. In 60 seconds it checks 8 factors: whether the site responds, title, meta description, Schema.org JSON-LD markup, FAQ markup, llms.txt, AI crawler access in robots.txt, and sitemap.xml. You get back a list of what to fix.
If you need ongoing work, GEO Autopilot handles it on a subscription: a monthly visibility measurement, 4 new pages a month and a before-and-after report. We repeat this same manual check every month, only automatically and across all your questions at once.
FAQ
Why does ChatGPT give me and my colleague different answers?
Answers depend on chat history, memory, language, location and the exact wording. On top of that, the model generates a fresh answer every time. So test in a clean chat and repeat important questions several times.
How often should I repeat the check?
Once a month, with the same list of questions. That way you see a trend rather than random swings in a single answer.
Do I need a paid ChatGPT plan for this?
The free version is usually enough for a basic check. What matters is that the assistant searches the web: without search, the model answers from older data and may not know about newer businesses.
The AI gave the wrong address or prices. What should I do?
Ask which sources it relied on and find where the old data lives: your site, Google Maps, directories or old articles. Fix it and make your name, address and phone number consistent everywhere. Answers don't update instantly, so check again in a few weeks.
Is checking Google AI Overviews any different?
AI Overviews and Gemini rely largely on Google, so results there are more closely tied to your rankings in regular search. See which queries trigger the AI block and whether it links to your site.
Does the free bot audit replace the manual check?
No, the two complement each other. The bot checks 8 technical site factors in 60 seconds, while the manual check shows what AI assistants actually tell your customers. It's best to do both.