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ChatGPT SEO: OpenAI says search is a fifth of Google's volume

In short

At a press event reported by The Verge on 3 November 2026, OpenAI's consumer product lead for ChatGPT, Adam Fry, said the volume of search queries run through ChatGPT now equals 20 per cent of Google's. The report gives no underlying totals, and Fry did not say where the Google figure came from. Treat it as OpenAI's claim, not a market share. Some buyers ask ChatGPT questions they might also type into a search box, so a business needs to be findable there too.

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What exactly did OpenAI say?

According to The Verge's report of 3 November 2026, Fry said ChatGPT's volume of search queries now equals 20 per cent of the volume run through Google. He defined a search as any time a user's query results in a web search, as opposed to tasks such as defining a term or a simple how-to explanation. The Verge notes that Fry did not specify the source of the Google figure.

A week later, in its Businesses in ChatGPT announcement of 10 November 2026, OpenAI put ChatGPT's audience at 1.2 billion people a week. Both are OpenAI's own figures. They are industry figures, not results of our work.

What does the number not tell you?

Three things are missing:

  • No absolute total. OpenAI gave a ratio, not a count of searches.
  • No common definition. It is not clear that OpenAI and Google count a "search" the same way, or how follow-up questions in one conversation are counted.
  • No UK split. Nothing in the report breaks the figure down by country or sector.

If accurate, the figure suggests ChatGPT search is large. It does not say how many of your buyers use it, or for which questions. The only reliable way to find out is to test your own buyer questions and watch what happens.

How does ChatGPT find the businesses it names?

When ChatGPT runs a web search, it needs pages it is allowed to read. OpenAI's crawler documentation says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT's search features, and that sites which opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt and allowing requests from its published IP ranges. A robots.txt change can take around 24 hours to take effect.

GPTBot is a separate crawler used for model training. Blocking it does not, on OpenAI's description, remove a site from ChatGPT search. Our explainer on how AI answers choose their sources compares ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google.

What does "ChatGPT SEO" mean in practice?

Mostly, the fundamentals done carefully:

  1. Let the search crawler in. Check /robots.txt and your firewall for OAI-SearchBot.
  2. Be indexed by the big search engines. OpenAI says ChatGPT search sometimes uses other search providers as well as its own crawler. Use Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to confirm your key pages are indexed.
  3. Answer the buyer's question on the page. One clear page per service, with the answer near the top, in the words your buyers use.
  4. Keep facts consistent. Your name, services and location should match across your site and profiles. OpenAI's new Business Hub is one more place to keep accurate.
  5. Date your pages. Show when a page was last updated, so it is clear what is current.
  6. Test monthly. Ask the same buyer questions in a logged-out window, and record who is named and which pages are cited. Our AI visibility audit checklist includes a template, and why a business may not show up in ChatGPT covers the usual blockers.

We use AI tools for research, content optimisation and AI-search monitoring. We do not promise a ranking, a traffic figure, or a mention in any answer engine.

FAQ

Is ChatGPT bigger than Google for search? No. OpenAI's own claim, as reported by The Verge on 3 November 2026, is that ChatGPT handles one-fifth of Google's volume of search queries. OpenAI counts a search as a query that results in a web search, but it did not publish totals or say where its Google figure came from.

Does blocking GPTBot remove me from ChatGPT search? OpenAI describes GPTBot as a training crawler and OAI-SearchBot as the search crawler. To appear in ChatGPT search answers, OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot.

Is ChatGPT SEO different from Google SEO? The work overlaps heavily: crawlable, indexed, clearly written pages with consistent facts. The difference is mainly in how you check results, by testing buyer questions in ChatGPT rather than reading a rank position.

How do I know if ChatGPT mentions my business? Ask your buyers' questions in a logged-out window each month and record the answers. If you claim your business in OpenAI's Business Hub, it may also show aggregated mentions once volumes meet OpenAI's thresholds.

Keep reading

Questions? Email .

Sources (checked 11 November 2026)

  • The Verge, "OpenAI says ChatGPT is catching up to Google in search", Hayden Field, 3 November 2026 (reports OpenAI's statement): https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1025482/openai-says-chatgpt-is-catching-up-to-google-in-search
  • OpenAI, "Introducing Businesses in ChatGPT", 10 November 2026: https://openai.com/index/introducing-businesses-chatgpt
  • OpenAI, "Overview of OpenAI Crawlers": https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
  • OpenAI Help Center, "Searching the web with ChatGPT": https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9237897-searching-the-web-with-chatgpt

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