How to Get Your Products Indexed by Perplexity and ChatGPT Search

The 30-second test

Try this right now: ask Perplexity "best [your product category] brands in the US". Then ask ChatGPT Search the same question.

Does your store show up in the answer?

If not — it's not because your products aren't good. It's because AI crawlers can't understand your site. Here is the 4-step fix we use with US/EU Shopify brands to get them cited in AI answers.

Step 1: Allow AI crawlers in robots.txt

This sounds obvious. It is not. Many Shopify stores inherit a Disallow: / from old template configurations or overly aggressive SEO apps.

The fix: explicitly allow AI crawlers in your robots.txt:

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /

User-agent: anthropic-ai
Allow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Allow: /

After updating, give AI engines 7-14 days to recrawl.

Step 2: Submit XML sitemap to AI engines

AI crawlers don't always discover your sitemap on their own.

Perplexity: Submit sitemap at https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot (or via their Webmaster tools when available).
ChatGPT Search (Bing-powered): Submit sitemap via Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing's index feeds ChatGPT Search.
Google AI Overviews: Already covered if you've submitted to Google Search Console.

Step 3: Add Product + FAQ + Article JSON-LD

Without Schema.org, AI models see your page as text. With Schema.org, they see products, questions, and articles — and can cite them in answers with confidence.

Minimum required on every product page:

{
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "...",
  "image": "...",
  "brand": { "@type": "Brand", "name": "..." },
  "offers": { "@type": "Offer", "price": "...", "availability": "..." },
  "aggregateRating": { "@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "...", "reviewCount": "..." },
  "review": [{ "@type": "Review", "reviewRating": "...", "author": "..." }]
}

Add FAQPage with 3-5 Q&A pairs per page. Add Article for blog posts. Add Organization with sameAs linking to your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

Step 4: Reshape top 10 pages as Q&A blocks

AI answer engines extract Q&A-shaped content. Rewrite your top 10 pages (by traffic) as direct answers to specific questions:

❌ "We sell sustainable activewear for women."
✅ "Where can I buy sustainable activewear for women in the US? Acme Apparel ships RPET activewear nationwide from $48, with free shipping over $100..."

The question-first format makes it trivial for AI to extract and cite your brand.

The timeline

Brands that complete all 4 steps typically see:

First AI crawls within 7-14 days (check server logs for PerplexityBot/ChatGPT-User)
First AI citations within 30-45 days
Steady citation growth from day 60-90 onwards

Free Growth Diagnosis (limited 6/mo)

We check all 4 steps on your store — plus technical SEO and AI-crawler-friendliness — in our 30-min free Growth Diagnosis. Limited to 6 US/EU Shopify brands per month.

Claim a slot → transatlas.co/services/1

Sources: PerplexityBot documentation; Bing Webmaster Tools guidelines; Schema.org Product specification.