What is ChatGPT Search, ChatGPT's web search?

ChatGPT Search is not a separate search engine with its own web: it is ChatGPT when it goes out to search. Nor is it the sidebar search, which finds your saved conversations and files.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT} It was introduced as a prototype called SearchGPT and folded into ChatGPT on October 31, 2024.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search} For a store, the change is that a shopping question can end in an answer with products, prices and links without passing through a list of results, and that your site gets into that answer through a different door than Google's.

How it works

ChatGPT chooses to search the web based on what you ask, or you search by hand from the search button.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search} Today web search is on the free plan and the paid ones, and people who are not signed in can use it, on chatgpt.com and in the desktop and mobile apps.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT} It reached paying users first; from December 16, 2024 it was open to all signed-in users, and since February 5, 2025 to anyone, without signing up, in the countries where ChatGPT is available.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search}

At launch, the model doing the searching was a version of GPT-4o tuned for the task. OpenAI explained that ChatGPT Search uses external search providers and content that its partners give it directly,⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search} and among the publishers it worked with it named Prisa (El País), Le Monde, Axel Springer and Reuters.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search} To see how those providers handle queries, the help page points to the privacy policies of Microsoft and Shopify.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT}

The part worth understanding, if you want to know which pages reach the answer, is the step in the middle. ChatGPT does not send your question as is: it usually rewrites it into one or more specific queries for those providers and, after seeing the first results, may run more specific ones. It can add your approximate location, which it infers from your IP, and, if you have memory turned on, what it remembers about you.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT} It is the same idea Google calls query fan-out: one question becomes several searches. With what it retrieves, the LLM (large language model) writes the answer, a pattern known as RAG.

Answers with search can carry citations inside the text and a sources button that opens the list of references.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search} OpenAI says it ranks results with several factors meant to help people find relevant, reliable information, and that position is not guaranteed. ⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT} It also warns that results and citations may be incomplete, outdated or wrong, and advises opening the cited source to check that it says what the answer attributes to it.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT}

When the question is about buying

If the question has purchase intent, ChatGPT can show products with an image, details and links to stores, and in some cases a payment inside ChatGPT, Instant Checkout. OpenAI states that these results are chosen by ChatGPT on its own and are not ads.⁠^{[3]OpenAI Help Center. Shopping with ChatGPT Search} To decide which products to show, it weighs the structured metadata it receives from first-party and third-party providers (price, description), other third-party content and its policies.⁠^{[3]OpenAI Help Center. Shopping with ChatGPT Search} When several stores sell the same product, it ranks them by availability, price, quality and whether they are the manufacturer or the main seller.⁠^{[3]OpenAI Help Center. Shopping with ChatGPT Search}

For Shopify stores, product data already reaches ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, with no extra work; everyone else can apply to send OpenAI a direct product feed.⁠^{[3]OpenAI Help Center. Shopping with ChatGPT Search} All of this is what falls under ChatGPT Shopping.

What your site needs to appear

OpenAI says it plainly: any public website can appear in ChatGPT Search, and for your content to make it into summaries and snippets you must not block OAI-SearchBot.⁠^{[4]OpenAI Help Center. Publishers and Developers - FAQ} To be eligible, you have to let OAI-SearchBot crawl the site and check that your hosting or CDN does not block the IPs OpenAI publishes for that agent.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT} A site that blocks it does not appear in search answers, though it can still show up as a navigational link, and a change to robots.txt can take about 24 hours to show.⁠^{[5]OpenAI. Overview of OpenAI Crawlers}

OpenAI's other two agents do different things. GPTBot crawls to train its models, and blocking it signals that your content should not be used for that. ChatGPT-User makes the visits a person asks for, and because someone initiates them, robots.txt rules may not apply.⁠^{[5]OpenAI. Overview of OpenAI Crawlers}

In a store

A fictitious example. Someone asks ChatGPT: "I'm looking for trail running shoes for overpronation that grip on wet ground." The answer can mix pieces that come from different places:

If a visit arrives from that answer, the URL carries the utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter, so you can separate it in your analytics.⁠^{[4]OpenAI Help Center. Publishers and Developers - FAQ}

How to check it

1. Open your robots.txt and check that OAI-SearchBot can get through. Then ask whoever manages your hosting or CDN whether the IPs OpenAI publishes for its search agent are blocked.⁠^{[1]OpenAI Help Center. Searching the web with ChatGPT}⁠^{[5]OpenAI. Overview of OpenAI Crawlers}
2. Ask your customer's question in a new chat, with search turned on and without your brand. Open the sources button and note which pages it cites, with the date.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search}
3. Filter your analytics for visits with utm_source=chatgpt.com and see which pages they land on.⁠^{[4]OpenAI Help Center. Publishers and Developers - FAQ}
4. If you sell on Shopify, confirm your products are in Shopify Catalog; if not, consider asking OpenAI for access to the direct feed.⁠^{[3]OpenAI Help Center. Shopping with ChatGPT Search}
5. Repeat the question on another day. One answer is a sample of one. Clione runs this check on a schedule: it asks ChatGPT and Gemini what shoppers ask and shows you whether they recommend your products and who replaces you when they stop.

Related concept: LLM

ChatGPT can answer without searching. In that case the model answers from what it learned in training, with no sources and no data from today; with search, it retrieves pages, cites them and can bring in current information, such as news or sports results.⁠^{[2]OpenAI (October 31, 2024, with updates on December 16, 2024 and February 5, 2025). Introducing ChatGPT search} The difference shows in the answer: if there are no citations and no sources panel, it did not search, and whatever it says about your product comes from the model's memory, not from your page. The LLM entry explains why that memory makes up facts.

To compare with what Google does, see the entry on AI Overviews; for the general frame, the one on AI search; and for the rest, the AI search reading path.