ChatGPT Now Crawls Your Site
3.6x More Than Google.

Something fundamental shifted in UK search this year.

ChatGPT now crawls websites more than Google does.

Not by a small margin. By 3.6 times.

An analysis of 24.4 million crawler requests across 78,000 pages on 69 websites tells the story.

Source: Search Engine Journal, April 2026.

If you sell to UK homeowners and you are still optimising only for Google, you are missing 70% of the search market.

This post explains what changed, what it means for tradespeople, and exactly what to do about it.

The Numbers Behind The Shift

Across the 55-day study period, requests broke down like this.

Read that again.

OpenAI's two crawlers combined hit 142,225 requests.

That is 3.8 times Googlebot.

AI-related crawlers in total hit 213,477 requests.

Traditional search crawlers hit 59,353.

The split is now 78% AI to 22% traditional search.

Why ChatGPT Crawls Your Site

There are two ChatGPT crawlers and they do different things.

ChatGPT-User: the customer is asking right now

When a homeowner asks ChatGPT "best painter in Lichfield", ChatGPT-User goes out to the web in real time.

It pulls a handful of pages. It reads them. It synthesises an answer.

If your website is one of those pages, your business gets named in the answer.

If it is not, you do not exist for that customer.

This is happening millions of times a day in the UK.

Each request is a real person looking for a tradesperson, an answer, a recommendation.

GPTBot: the AI is learning who you are

GPTBot is the training crawler.

It reads your website to teach the underlying language model about your business, your trade, your area.

The next version of ChatGPT inherits that knowledge.

Block GPTBot today and you are locked out of every conversation the next ChatGPT model has about your trade in your town.

What This Means For UK Tradespeople

The combined effect is straightforward.

A homeowner can now ask ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity for a recommendation, and the AI will give them a list of named, real, local businesses.

The AI gets that list by reading websites in real time.

The websites it reads are the ones with content, structure and freshness it can understand.

Trade websites that are thin, slow or hidden behind JavaScript are skipped.

Trade websites with town-specific pages, recent updates and clear structure get cited.

The customer never sees the SEO. They see ChatGPT recommending you by name.

Why Your Old SEO Still Matters But Is No Longer Enough

Traditional SEO was about ranking high on Google.

That game has not gone away. Position one in the local pack still gets 44% of clicks.

But position one in Google is now only one half of the visibility battle.

The other half is being inside the answer that ChatGPT, Claude and Google's own AI Overviews give to the user.

An AI Overview citation produces 35% more clicks than the equivalent organic position.

This is why we now build for both.

What Gets You Cited By ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity

Three things, in order.

1. Town-specific pages with depth

AI engines look for clear, specific pages that answer a clear, specific question.

"Painter Lichfield" should be its own page. Not a generic painter page that mentions Lichfield in passing.

The page should answer the obvious questions a homeowner has, in plain English, with structure the AI can parse.

2. Freshness

Search Engine Land and Akamai both reported the same finding in 2026.

AI crawlers prioritise pages updated in the last 7 to 30 days.

A trade website with no new content for 18 months gets ignored.

A monthly blog post or town page update keeps the site inside the freshness window.

3. Brand mentions across the web

The strongest correlation in AI citation analysis was brand search volume.

Businesses that get mentioned by name on other websites get cited more often by AI.

Local press. Trade body listings. Customer reviews. Directory entries.

None of these are SEO links in the old sense, but every one of them teaches AI that you are a real, named business.

What To Do This Month

Five concrete actions for any UK tradesperson reading this.

1. Allow the AI crawlers

If you have a robots.txt file, check it now.

Block GPTBot or ChatGPT-User and you are blocked from the new search market.

The recommended setup allows both retrieval crawlers (ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) and training crawlers (GPTBot, CCBot).

Training data is what teaches future AI models who you are.

Block today, lose tomorrow.

2. Build town-specific pages

One page per trade-plus-town combination you serve.

Painter Lichfield gets its own page. Painter Burntwood gets its own page.

The page covers your services, the towns within your radius, your reviews, and clear pricing or a call-to-action.

3. Update something every month

One new town page, one blog post, or one new service page per month.

Every update tells AI crawlers the site is alive.

Pages older than 30 days drop in priority for AI citation.

4. Get the basics right for AI parsing

Clear headings. Short paragraphs. Direct answers to obvious questions.

Structured data (FAQPage schema, Service schema) gives AI a roadmap of what your page is about.

Sites with proper FAQ schema get cited 40% more often than those without.

5. Keep accumulating brand mentions

Local press. Chamber of Commerce. Trade bodies. Local sponsorships.

Every time your business name appears on a website that AI trusts, your citation odds go up.

This is also why Google reviews matter so much in 2026. Each review is another mention of your name in an AI-trusted source.

Real Examples From The CRM Regions

We track AI citations for trades in our active CRM regions.

Lichfield. Grimsby. Shrewsbury. Darlington. Keighley. Halifax. Bridlington.

The pattern is consistent across all of them.

Trades with proper town pages plus monthly updates plus 30+ Google reviews get named when ChatGPT is asked for a recommendation.

Trades with a generic homepage plus no recent content plus fewer than 10 reviews get skipped.

The gap is binary. There is no middle ground.

The Cost of Getting Cited

This is the part most tradespeople do not realise.

The same content that gets you cited by AI is the content that ranks you on Google.

You are not paying for two systems.

Local SEO at £299 per month covers the on-page work, the content updates, the schema, the reviews system and the citation building. See full plans.

The website that PGD builds (free, included in the plan) is structured for AI parsing from day one.

Every action that improves your AI visibility also improves your Google ranking.

The investment is the same. The visibility doubles.

What Your Competitors Are Probably Doing

The honest answer is: nothing.

97% of UK tradespeople we audit have no AI search optimisation in place.

Many do not know it is a thing.

Most who do know assume it is too technical to matter for a sole trader.

That assumption is what creates the opportunity.

The first painter, builder, roofer or electrician in your town to get this right wins the AI recommendation slot.

Once a business owns that slot, the second business has to outwork them by a factor of 3 to dislodge them.

This is why we cap each trade at one client per town.

The first one gets the slot. There is no second one.

How To Find Out If You Are Already Cited

Or, skip the manual check. Get a free AI visibility audit and we will run all the queries for your trade and town in one go, with a written report on what to fix first.

Open ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity right now.

Ask: "Best [your trade] in [your town]".

See if your business appears in the answer.

If it does, well done. Do not lose the slot. Update something on your website this month.

If it does not, your competitors who do appear are taking calls you should be taking.

Every day you wait, the AI memory of who is the recommended local trade hardens further.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is AI search optimisation for tradespeople?

AI search optimisation, also called GEO, gets your business cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. It overlaps with traditional SEO but adds requirements for content depth, freshness and structured data that AI engines look for.

Is AI search optimisation different from regular SEO?

Yes and no. The same underlying work helps both. Town-specific pages, regular content updates, FAQ schema and Google reviews all improve your Google ranking and your AI citation odds. The differences are smaller than people assume. The same investment delivers both.

Should I block ChatGPT and other AI crawlers from my website?

No. Blocking AI crawlers means your business cannot be cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or future AI tools. Unless you have specific content that must not be used for AI training, allow both retrieval crawlers (ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) and training crawlers (GPTBot, CCBot). Training crawlers teach future AI models about your business.

How long does it take to get cited by ChatGPT?

For UK trades in towns with manageable competition, first ChatGPT citations appear within 8 to 16 weeks. The trigger is having town-specific pages live, reviews building, and content updated monthly. Consistent citation across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity typically takes 4 to 6 months.

Why is ChatGPT crawling websites so much more than Google?

ChatGPT-User retrieves pages in real time when a user asks a question that needs current information. Each user question can trigger multiple page fetches. Googlebot, by contrast, builds an index in advance and re-checks pages on a slower schedule. The pattern is similar to a librarian (Google) versus a researcher who looks something up on demand (ChatGPT).

Will Google AI Overviews replace ChatGPT for local searches?

No. The two are complementary. Google AI Overviews appear inside Google search results. ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity are separate apps users open directly. UK homeowners use both. The same content optimisation gets you cited in both, so the answer is to optimise once and benefit twice.

How much does AI search optimisation cost?

Potter Gold Digital includes AI search optimisation in every plan from £299 per month. The work overlaps with Local SEO, so there is no separate fee. The dedicated GEO add-on at £200 per month adds deeper AI citation building for businesses competing in dense markets.