How to get your property to appear on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode

Why it matters for a property

More and more travellers ask full questions instead of typing keywords: "quiet guesthouse with breakfast on Samothraki near the hot springs" instead of "rooms Samothraki". AI answers cite and recommend pages. If your website doesn't answer such questions clearly, there is nothing for them to cite.

What Google says

In its guide to AI features, Google is clear: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary". And: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features".

The requirement is that the page is indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet in search. The practices it recommends are the familiar SEO ones: allow crawling, internal links, a good page experience, content in text form, quality images, structured data that matches what visitors see, and an up-to-date Business Profile.

What OpenAI says about ChatGPT

OpenAI uses the OAI-SearchBot crawler to show websites in ChatGPT search, and recommends allowing it in robots.txt. It is separate from GPTBot, which collects content for model training. You can allow the first and block the second:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

Many website templates and "security" plugins block all bots without the owner knowing. It's worth checking your website's robots.txt file (e.g. your-website.gr/robots.txt).

Checklist for your property

1. Text should be text. Not inside images or PDFs. AI platforms read text.
2. The first paragraph should answer: what it is, exactly where, for whom. For example: "Family-run 8-room guesthouse in [village], 300 m from the sea, with breakfast".
3. Specific facts: number and types of rooms, distances, check-in/out times, breakfast, parking, pets, how to get there.
4. Questions and answers with the real questions people ask you on the phone.
5. The same details everywhere: name, address and phone identical on your website, Google, Booking.com, Airbnb, Facebook.
6. Google Business Profile set up correctly, if you are eligible (see our guide).
7. Reviews that are real, with replies.
8. Structured data (schema) that describes the property and matches what the page says.
9. robots.txt that allows Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot.

What not to pay for

• "Special AI files". Google says explicitly that they aren't needed for its AI features.
• Keyword-stuffed text, or dozens of near-identical pages for every village. Google treats them as spam.
• Guarantees that "ChatGPT will recommend you". No one controls what an AI will answer.

GEO is part of our work on SEO & GEO and is included in the Accommodation Package.