How to get your gear recommendations found in ChatGPT, Claude and Google

To have your gear recommendations show up when someone asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or Google, put them on a public page that search engines can index, name every product exactly, and link to that page from everywhere you post. There's no special trick: Google says a page only needs to be indexed and eligible for a normal search snippet to appear in its AI features, with no extra files or markup (Google Search Central, updated December 2025). ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity answer many questions by searching the web and citing pages, so the same rule applies: if your page can be found, it can be cited.

Every claim about how these companies work comes from their own documentation, opened on 23 October 2026. Setup101 is our product; we've said where it fits, and what it can't promise.

How AI assistants find your recommendations

When someone asks "what's the best mic for a small desk setup?", an AI assistant with search turned on looks the question up, reads the pages it finds, and cites some of them in its answer. Each company runs its own search crawler, separate from the one it uses to collect training data.

• ChatGPT

  Crawler that decides if you appear in answers

  OAI-SearchBot

  Training crawler (separate)

  GPTBot

  Source

  OpenAI

• Claude

  Crawler that decides if you appear in answers

  Claude-SearchBot (plus Claude-User for user requests)

  Training crawler (separate)

  ClaudeBot

  Source

  Anthropic, April 2026

• Perplexity

  Crawler that decides if you appear in answers

  PerplexityBot

  Training crawler (separate)

  Perplexity says its crawlers aren't used for training

  Source

  Perplexity

• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode

  Crawler that decides if you appear in answers

  Googlebot, the normal search crawler

  Training crawler (separate)

  —

  Source

  Google, December 2025

Two things follow from this:

• If a page blocks the search crawler, it can't be cited. OpenAI says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot won't appear in ChatGPT's search answers.
• Search and training are separate. You can block the training crawlers and still allow the search ones, if you'd rather your content wasn't used for training.

Eight steps to make your gear page citable

1. Put your gear on one permanent page

A list of links in each video description is scattered across dozens of pages and goes out of date. One page with everything you use, at an address that never changes, gives search engines and AI assistants a single source to find and cite. Link to it from every video.

2. Name every product exactly

Write the brand and model, such as "Shure MV7+", not "my mic". People ask about specific products, and AI answers match on names.

3. Say why you chose it

One sentence per product ("I picked it because it rejects keyboard noise") is the detail that makes your page more useful than a shop listing, and it's what gets quoted.

4. Group by what it's for

Separate pages or sections for your desk, camera bag and travel kit match how people search: "best travel camera setup", not "everything this creator owns".

5. Link to it from everywhere

Put the link in your video descriptions, pinned comments, bio, newsletter and blog. Links help search engines find a page and judge whether it matters.

6. Keep it current

Swap discontinued products and fix dead links. A page full of out-of-stock products is less useful to readers, and less likely to be worth citing. The free affiliate link checker shows which of your links are broken.

7. Don't block the search crawlers

If you host your own gear page, check your site's robots.txt. Make sure it doesn't block Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot. Hosting, security and bot-blocking settings can block these crawlers too, so check those as well as robots.txt.

8. Tell search engines the page exists

If it's on your own site, submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Both are free and show whether your pages are indexed.

How to check whether it's working

• Google: search for your page's title in quotes. If it doesn't appear after a few weeks, check Search Console for indexing problems.
• AI assistants: ask ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, with web search on, the questions your audience asks, such as "What camera does [your name] use?" or "Best budget desk setup for video editing". Note whether your page is cited, and try again each month.

Expect it to take time. New pages can take days to weeks to be indexed, and no one controls which pages an assistant cites for a given question.

Where Setup101 fits

A setup on Setup101 is a gear page built this way. When a setup is listed (public, with a photo and at least one public product), Setup101:

• builds the page so search engines see the full product list;
• marks up the products;
• adds the page to its sitemap;
• keeps one permanent address that never changes.

It doesn't block the search crawlers above. You still do steps 2 to 6: clear names, a note on each product, links from your content and keeping it current.

What Setup101 can't do is guarantee where a page ranks or whether an AI assistant cites it. Nobody can. How setups get found has the details.

FAQ

Do I need an llms.txt file or special schema for AI search?

Not for Google: it says no AI text files, machine-readable files or special schema.org markup are needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity document the crawlers to allow, not special files.

Can I appear in AI answers but keep my content out of AI training?

Yes. The companies run separate crawlers for each. Allow OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, and block GPTBot and ClaudeBot in your robots.txt.

Will my YouTube video descriptions be enough?

They help people who already watch you. A single gear page with named products and notes is easier to find, cite and keep up to date than links spread across many descriptions.

How long does it take for AI assistants to find my page?

There's no set time. A page first has to be found and indexed by the assistant's search. OpenAI notes that changes to robots.txt take about 24 hours to reach its crawler.

Sources

All opened on 23 October 2026.

• AI features and your website, Google Search Central, last updated December 10, 2025
• Overview of OpenAI crawlers, OpenAI (undated)
• Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?, Anthropic, April 7, 2026
• Perplexity crawlers, Perplexity (undated)