The free audit asks Perplexity a handful of questions a buyer of yours might ask, and shows whether it cites you. It does not ask ChatGPT: that is measured in the product, on the trial, Starter, Growth and Scale.
OpenAI says ChatGPT may search the web automatically when your question would benefit from current information.
When it searches, ChatGPT sometimes works with other search providers, and typically rewrites your question into one or more targeted queries sent to them.
Answers that use web search can include citations you can open, and a Sources view lists the cited sources and other relevant links.
In OpenAI's API, the model chooses whether to search based on the prompt, and each citation carries the URL, title and location of the cited source.
OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT search, and that to be included in summaries and snippets you should make sure you are not blocking OAI-SearchBot.
Sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links.
ChatGPT-User is not used to decide whether content appears in search, and GPTBot is the separate training crawler. Each robots.txt setting is independent.
How we ask
We put each tracked question to ChatGPT through DataForSEO's LLM Responses API, using the gpt-4.1-mini model with web search on, and read the sources the answer cites. That is the engine's API, not a signed-in session in the ChatGPT app, so an answer can differ from the one a person sees.
How often
Every 14 days per question, spread across that window so a domain's checks do not all land on one day. On free and trial accounts, scheduled checks pause after 14 days without a sign-in and resume on the next visit.
Each check records
| Plan | Tracked questions per domain | Checks a month, all engines |
|---|---|---|
| trial | 25 | 300 |
| Starter | 50 | 500 |
| Growth | 100 | 1,200 |
| Scale | 100 | 4,000 |
Past the monthly budget, the questions checked longest ago go first and the rest wait for the next cycle.
Vendor sources checked 2026-09-24