Updated September 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team
Six causes, ordered so the free ones get ruled out first — and the three checks that explain most cases in about an hour.
On this page · 13 sections
- Why ChatGPT recommends your competitor instead of you
- Which symptom do you actually have?
- Run these checks before you spend anything
- Explanations that are usually wrong
- Why your competitor actually wins
- What fixes each cause, and what it costs
- Why the answer differs by platform
- Everything else we have written on search, AI and getting found
- Symptom to cause: the diagnostic table
- What each platform needs from you
- The five-minute version
- What this page cannot tell you
- Video: AI search, crawlers and why pages get cited
The short answerUsually it is not that the model preferred them. It is that you were never eligible. Rule out six causes in order: a blocked AI crawler, content that only exists after JavaScript runs, not being in the index, no clean passage to quote, sources that disagree about your business, and no third-party corroboration. The first three are binary, free to test and account for most cases. And if you checked once and saw nothing, that proves little — answers vary between runs, so ask it five times first.
Nobody can tell you why a model specifically chose a competitor; no provider exposes that reasoning. What is knowable is whether you were eligible at all, and usually you were not.
Why ChatGPT recommends your competitor instead of you
In almost every case we have looked at, the answer is not that the model prefers them. It is that you were never eligible. Something between your server and the model stopped your content arriving at all, and your competitor simply did not have that problem.
There are six possible causes and they should be ruled out in order, because the first three are binary, free to test, and account for most cases. The last three are gradual, and they are where a competitor genuinely wins rather than where you are simply absent.
Before any of that, one correction worth making: if you checked once and concluded you are invisible, you have not established anything. Answers vary between runs of the identical prompt. Ask it five times before drawing a conclusion.
Cause one: the crawler never reached you
If robots.txt disallows GPTBot, or your server or CDN returns a 403 to it, your content has never entered the system. This is free to check and free to fix, and it turns up far more often than anyone expects — usually as a security plugin default nobody remembers enabling.
Cause two: the page needs JavaScript
Many AI crawlers do not execute it. If a scriptless fetch of your page returns a navigation bar, a footer and nothing else, the model has never seen a word of your actual content. It looks perfect to you because you check it in a browser.
Cause three: you are not in the index
Google’s AI surfaces retrieve from the Google index. A page that was never indexed cannot be cited, which is why answer engine work sits on top of ordinary search work rather than replacing it.
Cause four: there is no clean passage to lift
Retrieval selects a section, not a page. If the answer to the question lives in paragraph four after three paragraphs of context, there is nothing tidy to quote, and a competitor whose first sentence answers the heading gets chosen.
Cause five: your sources disagree about you
When the descriptions of your business differ across your site, your listings and third-party profiles, a model has conflicting information. Conflict produces caution, and caution reads as omission.
Cause six: nobody else says it about you
Your competitor is probably mentioned by third parties who are not them. Independent corroboration is what makes a claim safe to repeat, and it is the slowest thing on this list to build.
Which symptom do you actually have?
The pattern of your absence narrows the cause considerably. Absent on every platform points at access or rendering. Absent on one points at that platform’s specific crawler. Present but always behind competitors points at structure and corroboration rather than at anything broken.
Being named but described inaccurately is a different problem again, and a more urgent one — a wrong claim about your pricing or services repeated in an answer does more damage than silence.
Run these checks before you spend anything
Six tests, four of them free, and together they take about an hour. Most sites find their cause inside them, which is why we publish the method rather than making it the paid part.
Do them in this order. If test one fails, the others are moot until it is fixed.
Read your robots.txt
Search for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended. Any Disallow under one of those is a complete explanation for that platform.
Fetch a page without JavaScript
Disable it in your browser’s developer tools and reload, or fetch with curl. If very little remains, this is your answer and it is an engineering problem.
Request the page as an AI crawler
Set the user agent string. A 403 or a soft 404 served only to bots is invisible in ordinary browsing and completely disqualifying.
Ask the failing prompt five times
Store every answer verbatim. If you appear in two of five, you are marginally retrievable rather than absent, which is a different problem.
Check your server logs
Filter for the AI user agents over the last thirty days. This is the only evidence that access is real rather than theoretical.
Read your own section
Find the page that should answer the question and read the section that promises it. Is the answer in the first sentence, or the fourth paragraph?
Explanations that are usually wrong
Four keep coming up and none of them is the cause. They did not pay for placement, because no ad inventory exists inside AI answers. The model is not biased against you. Publishing more articles will not fix it. And llms.txt is not the missing piece.
Domain authority is the interesting one. It matters here, but far less than in a search result, which is precisely why small sites do get cited alongside large publishers. If someone tells you your authority is the whole explanation, they have not run the technical checks.
‘They paid to be there’
There is no ad inventory, no submission process and no paid tier inside AI answers. Nobody bought that position.
‘The model is biased’
Retrieval selects on relevance and apparent reliability, not preference. Absence is nearly always an eligibility problem rather than a judgement.
‘We need more content’
Volume is not the lever. One page whose section answers the question cleanly beats twenty that circle it.
‘We need llms.txt’
Adoption is low and it is not a ranking factor. Adding it is fine; expecting it to change anything is not.
‘Our authority is too low’
It matters less than in search. A DA-18 site currently holds position one for a $45-a-click commercial term in this very category.
Why your competitor actually wins
Rarely because they are outstanding on one dimension. Usually because they fail none of them: reachable, renders, clean passage, clear entity, corroborated by people who are not them.
That is an encouraging finding rather than a discouraging one, because four of those five are things you control directly and three of them are cheap.
They are reachable
Their robots.txt permits the crawlers and their server returns 200s.
Their page renders
Content is in the HTML rather than assembled after load.
Their answer is liftable
The section that promises the answer delivers it immediately.
Their identity is unambiguous
Every source describes the business the same way.
Other people vouch for them
Independent mentions, reviews and coverage, none of it theirs.
None of this is proprietary
There is no trick here you cannot replicate this quarter.
What fixes each cause, and what it costs
Matched directly to the diagnosis. Unblocking a crawler costs minutes. Fixing rendering is an engineering project. Moving an answer into the first sentence of a section is cheap and affects every page. Corroboration is slow and cannot be rushed.
The inversion is the important part: the cheapest fix on the list is frequently the one that was silently costing you everything.
Why the answer differs by platform
Each surface uses its own crawler and its own retrieval. Perplexity fetches live at question time and is generally kindest to smaller sites. Google’s AI surfaces need ordinary indexation. Copilot leans on the Bing index. ChatGPT uses both a crawled index and live retrieval.
So being absent on one platform and present on others is genuinely informative — it usually points at that platform’s specific crawler rather than at anything wrong with the page.
Want the diagnosis rather than the checklist?
The tests above are free and complete. An AI visibility audit runs them properly, reads your server logs, and tells you which of the six causes is actually yours — with a baseline recorded so you can prove the fix worked.
Want this done for your site?We build and maintain the search, content and paid programmes described on this page.
Everything else we have written on search, AI and getting found
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Not sure which of these applies to you?Tell us the situation and we will say plainly what we would do first, and what we would not.
Symptom to cause: the diagnostic table
Work from what you are seeing to the cause that produces it, rather than guessing at fixes.
| What you observe | Most likely cause | How to confirm it | Cost to fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Absent on every platform | Blocked crawler or JS-only content | robots.txt read, then a scriptless fetch | Free, or an engineering project |
| Absent on one platform only | That platform’s crawler is blocked or never visited | robots.txt for that agent, then a log grep | Usually free |
| Present but always behind competitors | Weak passage structure or no corroboration | Read your own section; search for third-party mentions | Cheap, then slow |
| Named but described wrongly | Sources disagree about your business | List every source describing you and compare | Weeks of tidying |
| Named on ‘what is X’, absent on ‘who provides X’ | No provider-intent content, or no corroboration | Check whether a page answers the provider question at all | Moderate |
| Was cited last month, gone now | A site change, or a model update | Diff your robots.txt and templates; check the date | Depends |
| Ranks well in Google, absent in AI | Rendering or passage structure | Scriptless fetch; read the section | Varies |
| Appears in two runs out of five | Marginal retrievability, not absence | Repeat runs and store the answers | Cheap: strengthen the passage |
What each platform needs from you
The requirements differ by platform, and a fix that satisfies one may do nothing for another.
| Platform | Crawler | Retrieval style | Most common reason you are absent |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot | Crawled index plus live retrieval | Crawler disallowed in robots.txt |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot | Live fetch at question time | Server returns 403 to the bot |
| Google AI Overviews | Googlebot, Google-Extended | Google index | Page not indexed, or thin passage |
| Google AI Mode | Googlebot, Google-Extended | Google index | Same as above |
| Copilot | Bingbot | Bing index | Not indexed in Bing specifically |
| Claude | ClaudeBot | Web search when enabled | ClaudeBot disallowed |
| Gemini | Google-Extended | Google grounding | Google-Extended disallowed |
The five-minute version
If you only have five minutes, these are the checks that most often find the cause.
| Do this | Where | What a failure looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Read robots.txt | yoursite.com/robots.txt | Disallow under GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot or Google-Extended |
| Load a page with JavaScript off | Browser dev tools, or curl | Navigation and footer only; no body content |
| Ask the prompt five times | ChatGPT and Perplexity | Named zero times out of five, consistently |
What this page cannot tell you
Why the model chose them, specifically. No provider exposes model reasoning, so nobody can answer that — not us, not your competitor’s agency, and not any tool on the market. What can be established with certainty is whether you were eligible to be chosen at all, and for most sites asking this question, the honest answer turns out to be no.
| Question | Can it be answered? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Did the crawler reach my page? | Yes, definitively | Server logs |
| Does my page render for a machine? | Yes, definitively | Scriptless fetch |
| Am I in the index? | Yes | Index coverage checks |
| Is there a clean passage? | Yes, by reading it | Human judgement |
| Do my sources agree? | Yes | List and compare them |
| Why did the model prefer them? | No | Not exposed by any provider |
Video: AI search, crawlers and why pages get cited
Background viewing. The diagnostic method is written out in full above; these are context rather than the source of anything here.
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Getting found in search
AI, AEO and what is changing
- GEO vs SEO
- How AI will affect SEO
- AI automation agency
- AI automation cost
- AI customer service
- AI in digital advertising
- AI for email marketing
- AI for restaurant social media
- Generative engine optimization agency
- AI visibility best practices
- Answer engine optimization agency
- AEO vs GEO vs LLM SEO
- LLM SEO: the technical side
- How to rank in ChatGPT
- AI visibility tools compared
- AI visibility audit
- AI SEO agency
- AI search statistics, traced
- AI SEO in New York
- AEO vs SEO: what transfers
- AEO pricing: what it costs
- AEO agency: how to choose one
- What is AEO? Defined
- AEO services: what you receive
- AEO audit: the full checklist
- AI search optimization: two engines
- AEO tools: which class you need
- LLM visibility: what it measures
- AEO search landscape: original dataset
- How AI search works: the pipeline
- How to get cited by AI: nine moves
- AEO myths: twelve claims assessed
- How long AEO takes
- Local AEO: why it differs
- Enterprise AEO: the real blockers
- AI visibility trackers vs rank tracking
- Why AI visibility dropped
- AEO content writing: six rules
- AEO for small business: where to start
- AI answers vs organic search
- AEO experts: the six skills
- AEO pros and cons
- AEO and paid search together
- URLs and AI citation
- AEO for dentists
- AEO for doctors
- AEO for plastic surgeons
- AEO for chiropractors
- AEO for therapists
- AEO for med spas
- AEO for fintech
- AEO for plumbers
- AEO for roofers
- AEO for HVAC
- AEO for landscapers
- AEO for hotels
- AEO for wineries
- AEO for ecommerce
- Free tool: AI crawler access checker
- Free tool: llms.txt generator
- Free tool: schema vs copy validator
- Free tool: extractable content checker
- Free tool: AI visibility prompt builder
Paid media and lead generation
Websites and design
Choosing and working with an agency
Social, content and brand
By industry and by situation
Frequently asked questions
Why does ChatGPT recommend my competitor instead of me?
Did my competitor pay to be recommended?
Is the model biased against my brand?
How do I check if ChatGPT can even see my site?
I checked once and I was not mentioned. Am I invisible?
Why am I absent on one platform but present on others?
My site ranks well in Google but never appears in AI answers. Why?
Is my domain authority too low to be recommended?
Will publishing more articles fix it?
Will adding llms.txt fix it?
Why is my competitor cited when their content is worse?
What is the cheapest thing that might fix this?
What is the most expensive thing that might fix this?
AI describes my business incorrectly. Is that the same problem?
I was cited last month and now I am not. What changed?
How many times should I test a prompt?
Can a tool tell me why the model chose my competitor?
Which platform is easiest to get cited by?
How long until this is fixed?
Should I hire someone or fix it myself?
What if all six checks pass and I am still absent?
Does being named without a link still count?
Sources and further reading
- Google Search Essentials — SEO starter guide
- Google: creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Google: intro to structured data
- Google: LocalBusiness structured data
- Google: FAQPage structured data
- Google: Article structured data
- Google: Product structured data
- Google: title links in search results
- Google: control your snippets
- Google: robots.txt introduction
- Google: sitemaps overview
- Google: consolidate duplicate URLs
- Google: redirects and Search
- Google: JavaScript SEO basics
- Google: multi-regional and multilingual sites
- Google Search Central Blog
- Google: get started with Search Console
- Google: how local search results are determined
- Google Business Profile: prohibited and restricted content
- Google Business Profile: address and service area guidelines
- Google Business Profile: review policy
- Google Business Profile: add or edit categories
- Google Ads: location targeting settings
- Google Ads: about negative keywords
- Google Ads: about Quality Score
- Google Ads: importing offline conversions
- Google Ads: about Smart Bidding
- Google Ads: about Performance Max
- Google Local Services Ads: eligibility and screening
- Google Ads: keyword match types
- Google Analytics 4: about conversions
- Google Analytics 4: attribution models
- US Census Bureau QuickFacts: New Jersey
- US Census Bureau: American Community Survey
- US Census: Statistics of US Businesses
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: New Jersey data
- BLS: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
- NJ Department of Labor: labor market information
- New Jersey Business Action Center
- US Small Business Administration: New Jersey district
- USA.gov: business resources
- web.dev: Core Web Vitals explained
- web.dev: Largest Contentful Paint
- web.dev: Cumulative Layout Shift
- web.dev: Interaction to Next Paint
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- Google Rich Results Test
- Google Search Console
- W3C Markup Validation Service
- Schema.org: LocalBusiness type
- Schema.org: Service type
- Schema.org: FAQPage type
- Schema.org: HowTo type
- W3C: WCAG 2.2 quick reference
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide
- FCC: telemarketing and robocall rules (TCPA)
- FTC endorsement guides — reviews and testimonials
- FTC: rule on consumer reviews and testimonials
- HHS: HIPAA guidance on online tracking technologies
- New Jersey Courts: attorney advertising guidelines
- New Jersey DCA: construction codes and permits
- New Jersey Home Improvement Contractor registration
- New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs
- TikTok for Business
- TikTok Creative Center
- TikTok Ads Help Center
- TikTok Community Guidelines
- TikTok Terms of Service
- TikTok Privacy Policy
- TikTok Safety Center
- TikTok Transparency Center
- TikTok Creator Portal
- TikTok Newsroom
- TikTok for Developers
- TikTok advertising solutions
- TikTok Creator Marketplace
- TikTok Business Center
- TikTok for Business blog
- TikTok Creative Center: top ads
- TikTok Branded Content policy
- TikTok Shop for sellers
- Instagram for Business
- Instagram for Creators
- Instagram Help Center
- About Instagram
- Meta Business Suite
- Meta Business Help Center
- Meta Transparency Center
- About Meta
- Meta: Instagram platform docs
- YouTube Creators
- YouTube Official Blog
- YouTube Shorts help
- How YouTube Works
- YouTube Studio
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
- LinkedIn Help
- Pinterest Business
- Pinterest Business Help
- Snapchat for Business
- X for Business
- Reddit communities
- Reddit for Business Help
- ASCAP
- BMI
- SESAC
- Global Music Rights
- PRS for Music (UK)
- PPL (UK)
- SOCAN (Canada)
- APRA AMCOS (Australia)
- GEMA (Germany)
- SACEM (France)
- SIAE (Italy)
- JASRAC (Japan)
- IFPI
- RIAA
- National Music Publishers Association
- Harry Fox Agency
- SoundExchange
- Music Reports
- Epidemic Sound
- Artlist
- Soundstripe
- PremiumBeat
- AudioJungle
- Free Music Archive
- Creative Commons
- Incompetech
- FTC: advertising and marketing
- FTC: disclosures 101
- FTC: endorsement guides
- FTC: consumer reviews rule
- FTC: advertising FAQs
- US Copyright Office
- US Copyright Office: DMCA
- US Copyright Office: music FAQ
- US Copyright Office: fair use FAQ
- USPTO: trademarks
- UK Advertising Standards Authority
- ACCC (Australia)
- Competition Bureau Canada
- GDPR overview
- California Consumer Privacy Act
- COPPA
- FTC: children’s privacy
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
- W3C: WCAG
- W3C: captions
- W3C: making audio and video accessible
- ADA.gov
- WebAIM
- Epilepsy Foundation
- Pew Research: internet and technology
- DataReportal
- US Census Bureau
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Interactive Advertising Bureau
- Think with Google
- Google Trends
- Nielsen insights
- Schema.org: VideoObject
- Schema.org: SocialMediaPosting
- Schema.org: MusicRecording
- Schema.org: HowTo
- Schema.org: FAQPage
- Schema.org: Organization
- Google: video best practices
- Google: video structured data
- CapCut
- Adobe Premiere Rush
- DaVinci Resolve
- Canva
- Descript
- VEED
- Kapwing
- Otter.ai
- Later
- Buffer
- Hootsuite
- Sprout Social
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics developer docs
- GA4: events and conversions
- Matomo
- Plausible Analytics
- Similarweb
- UK Information Commissioner’s Office
- Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
- Australian OAIC
- European Data Protection Board
- EU data protection
- EU Digital Services Act
- Ofcom
- FCC
- AIGA
- Nielsen Norman Group
- Smashing Magazine
- web.dev
- MDN: web media
- MDN: the video element
- ISO 21001 (reference)
- Buma/Stemra (Netherlands)
- STIM (Sweden)
- Teosto (Finland)
- Koda (Denmark)
- TONO (Norway)
- IMRO (Ireland)
- SGAE (Spain)
- ZAiKS (Poland)
- KOMCA (South Korea)
- MCSC (China)
- CISAC
- World Intellectual Property Organization
- TikTok: creating videos
- TikTok: exploring videos
- TikTok: privacy settings
- TikTok: growing your audience
- TikTok Creator Academy
- TikTok Effect House
- TikTok for small business
- Instagram: Reels help
- YouTube: Shorts best practice
- How YouTube recommends
- Pinterest Predicts
- Snapchat for Business
- Hootsuite blog
- Social Media Examiner
- Marketing Week
- Adweek
- Google Search Essentials — SEO starter guide
- Google: creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Google: intro to structured data
- Google: LocalBusiness structured data
- Google: FAQPage structured data
- Google: Article structured data
- Google: Product structured data
- Google: title links in search results
- Google: control your snippets
- Google: robots.txt introduction
- Google: sitemaps overview
- Google: consolidate duplicate URLs
- Google: redirects and Search
- Google: JavaScript SEO basics
- Google: multi-regional and multilingual sites
- Google Search Central Blog
- Google: get started with Search Console
- Google: how local search results are determined
- Google Business Profile: prohibited and restricted content
- Google Business Profile: address and service area guidelines
- Google Business Profile: review policy
- Google Business Profile: add or edit categories
- web.dev: Core Web Vitals explained
- web.dev: Largest Contentful Paint
- web.dev: Cumulative Layout Shift
- web.dev: Interaction to Next Paint
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- Google Rich Results Test
- Google Search Console
- W3C Markup Validation Service
- Schema.org: LocalBusiness type
- Schema.org: Service type
- Schema.org: FAQPage type
- Schema.org: HowTo type
- W3C: WCAG 2.2 quick reference
- US Census Bureau QuickFacts: New Jersey
- US Census Bureau: American Community Survey
- US Census: Statistics of US Businesses
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: New Jersey data
- BLS: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
- NJ Department of Labor: labor market information
- New Jersey Business Action Center
- US Small Business Administration: New Jersey district
- USA.gov: business resources
- OpenAI — GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot documentation
- Google — crawlers and user agents
- Google — robots.txt introduction
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