ChatGPT search is not a separate app but a capability within ChatGPT, in the browser as well as in the desktop and mobile apps. It grew out of a prototype called SearchGPT, which OpenAI introduced in July 2024; OpenAI says it then brought the best of that prototype into ChatGPT. Through ChatGPT search, current content from your website can make its way into ChatGPT’s answers and be linked there as a source. Without this retrieval, ChatGPT answers from what its language models learned in training.
How ChatGPT search rewrites a question
According to OpenAI, when ChatGPT search draws on outside providers, it typically rewrites the question into one or more targeted queries instead of passing it on word for word, and sends those queries to the providers. After reviewing what it first retrieves, ChatGPT may send additional, more specific queries to other providers. This step is known as query rewriting; a close relative is query fan-out, splitting a question into several subqueries.
The queries can also include information that isn’t in the question at all:
- Approximate location: ChatGPT can infer an approximate location from the IP address and share it with providers. According to OpenAI, if someone asks for good restaurants nearby and the IP address points to San Francisco, ChatGPT may turn that into a query for the top restaurants in San Francisco. A more precise device location is used only if it has been shared.
- Saved memories: If memory is turned on, ChatGPT may add relevant saved memories to the query, such as the fact that someone is vegan.
Which pages ChatGPT retrieves therefore depends on the queries it writes itself, not only on the wording of the original question. The same question can lead to different queries for two people, and so to different sources.
Where the sources come from
ChatGPT search gets its content in three ways:
- OpenAI’s crawler: OAI-SearchBot crawls websites so that ChatGPT can show and link to them in its answers. According to OpenAI, a site is eligible only if its robots.txt file allows OAI-SearchBot and neither its hosting provider nor a content delivery network (CDN) blocks the crawler; both are part of a site’s crawlability.
- Outside providers: According to OpenAI, ChatGPT search sometimes works with other providers, such as Microsoft and Shopify. For questions about a place, ChatGPT can also draw on third-party providers that supply information such as nearby business listings or weather reports.
- Partner content: When it introduced ChatGPT search in October 2024, OpenAI also named content provided directly by partners such as news and data providers, for example on weather, stocks, sports, news, and maps.
ChatGPT can only choose from what it retrieved through these channels for a given question. According to OpenAI, it orders the web content it retrieves by multiple factors intended to help users find relevant, reliable information; OpenAI does not name the individual factors and does not guarantee a place as a source. Pages an answer relies on can appear in it as an AI citation: a source reference that opens the page in question.
What this means for your business
In the examples OpenAI gives, the rewritten queries are more specific than the original question and can add details such as a place. Pages that clearly state what you offer, at what prices, and in which locations, and keep that information current, can answer such queries more directly. How well individual passages work as a source is a matter of citability.
According to OpenAI, links from ChatGPT carry the parameter utm_source=chatgpt.com, so web analytics can report visits through them separately as AI referral traffic. Your AI visibility in ChatGPT, on the other hand, only becomes clear through recurring prompt tracking across many typical questions, because a single account reflects the location and memories of just one person.
Because ChatGPT also answers questions with the help of the web, it qualifies as an online search engine under the Digital Services Act (DSA); on August 31, 2026, the European Commission designated ChatGPT a very large online search engine.