# ChatGPT Search: What It Is and How It Picks Sources

> What ChatGPT Search is, how it searches the web and cites sources, how it picks the products it shows and what your store needs to appear in its answers.

URL: https://clione.ai/glossary/chatgpt-search/
Lang: en

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.[^openai-help-search] It was introduced as a prototype called SearchGPT and folded into ChatGPT on October 31, 2024.[^openai-launch] 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.[^openai-launch] 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.[^openai-help-search] 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.[^openai-launch]

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,[^openai-launch] and among the publishers it worked with it named Prisa (El País), Le Monde, Axel Springer and Reuters.[^openai-launch] To see how those providers handle queries, the help page points to the privacy policies of Microsoft and Shopify.[^openai-help-search]

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.[^openai-help-search] It is the same idea Google calls [_query fan-out_](/glossary/query-fan-out/): one question becomes several searches. With what it retrieves, the [LLM (large language model)](/glossary/llm/) writes the answer, a pattern known as [RAG](/glossary/rag/).

Answers with search can carry citations inside the text and a sources button that opens the list of references.[^openai-launch] OpenAI says it ranks results with several factors meant to help people find relevant, reliable information, and that **position is not guaranteed**.[^openai-help-search] 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.[^openai-help-search]

### When the question is about buying

If the question has [purchase intent](/glossary/purchase-intent/), ChatGPT can show products with an image, details and links to stores, and in some cases a payment inside ChatGPT, [Instant Checkout](/glossary/instant-checkout/). OpenAI states that these results are chosen by ChatGPT on its own and **are not ads**.[^openai-help-shopping] 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.[^openai-help-shopping] When several stores sell the same product, it ranks them by availability, price, quality and whether they are the manufacturer or the main seller.[^openai-help-shopping]

For Shopify stores, product data already reaches ChatGPT through [Shopify Catalog](/glossary/shopify-catalog/), with no extra work; everyone else can apply to send OpenAI a direct [product feed](/glossary/product-feed/).[^openai-help-shopping] All of this is what falls under [ChatGPT Shopping](/glossary/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](/glossary/oai-searchbot/)**.[^openai-publishers] 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.[^openai-help-search] 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`](/glossary/robots-txt/) can take about 24 hours to show.[^openai-bots]

OpenAI's other two agents do different things. [GPTBot](/glossary/gptbot/) crawls to train its models, and blocking it signals that your content should not be used for that. [ChatGPT-User](/glossary/chatgpt-user/) makes the visits a person asks for, and because someone initiates them, `robots.txt` rules may not apply.[^openai-bots]

## 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:

| Piece of the answer     | Where it comes from                                                                                                      | What your store can do                                                                                                                           |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| The text with citations | Pages the search retrieves, after rewriting the question into several queries[^openai-help-search]                       | Let OAI-SearchBot through and have the data that answers the question on the [product page](/glossary/product-page/): gait type, outsole, weight |
| The sources panel       | The cited references and other relevant links[^openai-help-search]                                                       | The same: the page has to be crawlable                                                                                                           |
| The products            | Structured metadata from providers, such as price and description[^openai-help-shopping]                                 | Shopify Catalog on Shopify, or a direct _feed_ requested from OpenAI[^openai-help-shopping]                                                      |
| The list of stores      | Data from providers or from the stores themselves, ranked by availability and price, among others[^openai-help-shopping] | Up-to-date [price and availability](/glossary/price-and-availability/) in the _feed_ and on the page                                             |

If a visit arrives from that answer, the URL carries **the `utm_source=chatgpt.com` parameter**, so you can separate it in your analytics.[^openai-publishers]


That the product ChatGPT shows carries your title and description as they are. OpenAI explains that it **may generate simplified titles and descriptions** from what reaches it from third parties, because each store names the same product differently; that labels such as "Budget-friendly" are applied by ChatGPT and are not verified claims; and that review summaries are written by the model from reviews on public websites that OpenAI does not verify.[^openai-help-shopping] What you control is the source data, not the final sentence.


## 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.[^openai-help-search][^openai-bots]
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.[^openai-launch]
3. **Filter your analytics for visits with `utm_source=chatgpt.com`** and see which pages they land on.[^openai-publishers]
4. **If you sell on Shopify, confirm your products are in Shopify Catalog**; if not, consider asking OpenAI for access to the direct _feed_.[^openai-help-shopping]
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](/glossary/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.[^openai-launch] **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](/glossary/ai-overviews/); for the general frame, the one on [AI search](/glossary/ai-search/); and for the rest, the [AI search reading path](/learn/ai-search/).