ChatGPT, tool by tool
How does ChatGPT decide which law firms to recommend?
What OpenAI actually documents about ChatGPT search: the crawlers, the rewritten queries, location and maps, and the settings a law firm controls.
By Santiago Alvarez, Founder, Ad Hoc Digital
Last updated
The short answer
If you read one part of this page, read this.
For a question like "who's a good custody lawyer near me?", ChatGPT usually searches the web, rewrites the question into one or more search queries using the person's approximate location, and writes its answer from the pages and listings those searches return. A firm gets recommended when it shows up, clearly and consistently, in that material.
OpenAI documents the plumbing, not a ranking recipe. Its search crawler is OAI-SearchBot, and sites that block it are not shown in ChatGPT search answers. It sends rewritten queries to outside search providers, and the privacy policies it points to are Microsoft's and Shopify's. It says results are ranked on "multiple factors" without listing them.
So the parts a firm controls are concrete: crawler access, pages that match the rewritten query, and listings that agree with each other. One family law firm now shows up first in ChatGPT. We work with law firms across the US and Canada, and also in Australia and the UK.
Two ways to answer
ChatGPT answers from its training or from a live web search, and lawyer questions usually trigger the search.
OpenAI says ChatGPT may search the web automatically when a question would benefit from current information. A request for a local lawyer is exactly that kind of question.
Without a search, ChatGPT answers from what its model learned in training. That works for "what is probate?" and poorly for "which probate lawyer in Columbus should I call?", because a local firm barely exists in training data and its phone number, reviews and office can change any month.
With a search, ChatGPT pulls current pages, then writes from them and shows citations. A person can also force it: OpenAI's help page describes picking Search from the tools menu, typing / in the message box, or regenerating an answer with web results. In our monthly checks we run every prompt with search on, because that's the version that decides who gets named.
The rewritten query
ChatGPT turns the client's question into its own search queries, and your pages have to match those.
OpenAI says ChatGPT search typically rewrites a question into one or more targeted queries for its search providers, then may send more specific follow-up queries after reading the first results.
OpenAI's own example: someone in San Francisco asks for good restaurants near them, and ChatGPT may search "top restaurants San Francisco". It estimates the city from the IP address and doesn't pass the IP address itself to the search provider.
Apply that to a law firm. A person in Fort Lauderdale types "my ex won't follow the custody order, who should I call?" and the query that actually goes out is likely shorter and local, something like a custody enforcement lawyer plus the city.
That's our illustration, not OpenAI's. But the logic holds: the pages that rank for that short query are what ChatGPT reads.
This is why one vague family law page loses to a firm with a page about enforcing custody orders in that county. The rewritten query is specific, and ChatGPT can only cite what the search returns. It's also why we build law firm websites with one page per kind of case rather than one page listing twelve.
Memory changes the query too. OpenAI says that if memory is on, saved details can shape the rewritten search, such as a city the person mentioned weeks ago. Two people asking the same words can trigger different searches.
OpenAI's crawlers
Four OpenAI user agents can visit a law firm's site, and only one decides whether you appear in ChatGPT search.
OpenAI lists each crawler, what it does and how robots.txt treats it. For a law firm the safe setting is simple: allow OAI-SearchBot, and make the training decision separately.
| User agent | What OpenAI says it does | What a law firm should do |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | Surfaces websites in ChatGPT's search features; opted-out sites are not shown in search answers | Allow it in robots.txt and let OpenAI's published IP ranges through the firewall or CDN |
| GPTBot | Crawls content that may be used to train OpenAI's foundation models | A business choice; blocking it does not remove you from ChatGPT search |
| ChatGPT-User | Visits a page when a user's question needs it; not automatic crawling; robots.txt rules may not apply | Nothing to set for search; it isn't used to decide what appears there |
| OAI-AdsBot | Checks landing pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT; content not used for training | Only relevant if the firm buys ChatGPT ads |
The robots.txt file is only half the check. OpenAI's help page tells site owners to confirm the host or content delivery network allows traffic from its published searchbot IP addresses.
When we audited the 16 client sites we host in October, four had a CDN setting blocking AI training crawlers while Google and Bing got through. Nobody at those firms had chosen that; it was a default.
Location and local results
ChatGPT guesses the city from the IP address, and that guess decides which firms are in the running.
OpenAI says ChatGPT may use an approximate location from the IP address for local results. Sharing precise device location is optional and off by default.
- Approximate location by default
ChatGPT can estimate country, state or city from the IP address. OpenAI notes that a VPN or office network can throw that estimate off, and suggests people add their city, neighborhood or postal code to the question. Many people searching for a lawyer won't, so the IP guess does the work.
- Maps and business listings
On iOS and Android, OpenAI says relevant results may include a map. It also says ChatGPT may share location with "trusted third-party providers" that supply information such as nearby business listings. OpenAI doesn't name those providers on the page, so we don't guess which listing service sits behind a given answer.
- What this means for a firm
The firm's city, the neighborhoods and courthouses it serves, and its address should be written plainly on the site and identical on every listing. If a listing service is feeding the map and it shows an old suite or a closed office, that's what a nearby person sees.
What the firm controls
Five things move a law firm's odds in ChatGPT, and each one traces back to OpenAI's own documentation.
None of these is a trick. Each one follows from how OpenAI says search works: crawl, rewrite, search, read, cite.
Let OAI-SearchBot in, at both layers
Check robots.txt for a rule that names OAI-SearchBot or blocks all bots. Then check the CDN or firewall bot settings, which is where we find most accidental blocks. If you block GPTBot, block it by name and leave OAI-SearchBot alone.
Cover the Microsoft side
OpenAI points users to Microsoft's privacy statement when it explains which search providers it sends queries to, which suggests Bing is part of what ChatGPT can draw on. Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing lets you import a site straight from Google Search Console) and submit the sitemap. Our Copilot guide covers Bing in depth.
Write pages that match the short local query
One page per case type you want, answering the client's question in the first two or three sentences, with the city and courts named where they genuinely apply. That's the standard we write client pages to, with official sources cited on the page.
Make every listing say the same thing
Whatever the search returns, ChatGPT reads: directories, your bar or law society profile, review sites. We keep one master record per firm (name, address, phone, hours, website, practice areas) and copy it to every listing character for character.
Read the Sources panel, then fix what it cites
OpenAI's help page says answers that use search may include citations and a Sources button. Those are the pages ChatGPT trusted for your city and practice. If a directory listing it cites is stale, fixing that listing is a direct change to the material.
How to test it
Test ChatGPT the way a stranger in your city would use it, more than once.
A lawyer logged into their own account, in the office, on the firm's network, is the least typical tester there is. Memory and location both lean the answer.
- Use a clean session
OpenAI says people who are not signed in can use web search. A private window, logged out, avoids your memory shaping the query. Name the city in some prompts and leave it out in others, since real clients do both.
- Write prompts the way clients talk
"Do I need a lawyer for an uncontested divorce in Tampa?" and "who handles DUI cases near Orlando?" beat "best family law firm". Ask the questions you hear on consultations.
- Run each prompt more than once
Answers vary between runs. Our method is the same prompt list every month, each run recorded: was the firm named, in what position, which other firms appeared, which sites were cited, and anything wrong said, copied word for word. The score is the share of runs that name the firm, judged over three months.
Our guide to checking what AI says about your firm has the full prompt list and a table to fill in, and measuring AI search traffic covers the analytics side. For the work itself across every AI tool, start with the nine-step action plan.
What we see
In our client work, ChatGPT rewards the firm with the clearest, most consistent picture.
Our clearest AI search result so far is in ChatGPT. It came from groundwork, not from anything ChatGPT-specific.
One family law firm now shows up first in ChatGPT. Over the last three months that has added 50 to 100 calls a month, and they're signing a lot of them. People going through a divorce often ask for a recommendation before calling anyone, which is why it matters so much in family law marketing.
Another client moved from family law into estate planning, and prospective clients started finding the firm inside ChatGPT and similar tools while we built the new reputation. Neither result came from a ChatGPT setting. Both came from crawlers allowed in, pages that answer specific questions, and listings and reviews that agree.
We also ask every client to add "an AI assistant like ChatGPT" to the "how did you hear about us?" question on forms and intake calls. Plenty of people read the answer, then call without ever clicking through, and that question is the only place they show up. The full program is on our AI search page.
Common mistakes
Where firms go wrong.
We see these on firm websites every month. Each one quietly removes a firm from what ChatGPT can read.
Blocking OAI-SearchBot to stop training
Training is GPTBot. Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps the site out of ChatGPT's search answers, which is the opposite of what most firms want.
Fixing robots.txt and forgetting the firewall
A clean robots.txt does nothing if the CDN challenges every unfamiliar bot. OpenAI specifically asks site owners to allow its published IP ranges.
Testing from your own account
Your saved memories and office network change the rewritten query. A logged-out private window is closer to what a new client sees.
Treating a ChatGPT ad as a recommendation
OpenAI now documents ads in ChatGPT and a separate crawler for ad landing pages. An ad sits beside the answer. It doesn't make ChatGPT name you in it.
Ignoring Bing
OpenAI's search providers include Microsoft. A firm with no Bing Webmaster Tools account and no sitemap there is leaving part of the material to chance.
Real results
What this looked like for real firms.
Two firms that clients now find inside ChatGPT: one family law firm named first, and one that used it to complete a move into estate planning.
Identifying details are anonymized to protect our clients. Individual result, not a promise or prediction of any specific outcome for your firm.
FAQ
Questions lawyers ask us.
Straight answers to the questions that come up most.
Does ChatGPT use Google to find lawyers?
OpenAI doesn't say so. Its help page says ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers, and the privacy policies it lists for those providers are Microsoft's and Shopify's. It also runs its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot. So for a law firm, Bing and the firm's own crawlable pages are the documented route.
If we block GPTBot, will ChatGPT stop recommending us?
Not according to OpenAI. GPTBot is for training, and OpenAI says each robots.txt setting is independent, so a site can block GPTBot and still allow OAI-SearchBot. Check the rule names carefully. A blanket rule that blocks all bots will block OAI-SearchBot too.
Why does ChatGPT recommend a firm in the wrong city?
ChatGPT estimates location from the IP address, and OpenAI notes a VPN or network location can skew it. Ask the same question with your city in it. If you're still missing, look at the cited sources: they show which pages ChatGPT found for that city, and whether yours were among them.
How long after we fix our site will ChatGPT notice?
OpenAI says a robots.txt change takes about 24 hours to register for search. Beyond that, nobody outside OpenAI can promise when a firm starts being named. In our experience it's months of steady work. If you need cases sooner, run ads alongside it; our guide to what law firm marketing costs covers the paid side.
Can we pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
OpenAI documents ads in ChatGPT, with a crawler that checks ad landing pages. Nothing in its documentation describes paying for a place inside the written answer. Treat any vendor promising a paid ChatGPT recommendation with suspicion, and ask them to show you OpenAI's page that says so.
Does ChatGPT read our Google reviews?
OpenAI doesn't publish which review sources ChatGPT reads. It reads pages its searches return, and for lawyer searches those often include review sites and legal directories. The practical step is the same either way: ask every client for an honest review in their own words, on the platforms your clients use.
Is this different for Canadian or UK firms?
The crawlers and settings are the same. What changes is the local material: law society listings, the directories that rank in your country, and wording like "lawyer" or "solicitor" in the prompts people type. Test with the phrases your own clients use.
Where should we start this week?
Check robots.txt and your CDN bot settings for OAI-SearchBot, run five client-style prompts in a logged-out window, and write down which sites ChatGPT cites. If you'd like us to run that baseline for your practice and city, schedule a consultation.
Where we do this
The services this guide touches.
What this looks like when we run it for a firm, with a demo for your practice on each page.
Sources
Where these facts come from.
Official pages we read when writing this page. Platforms and rules change, so check the current version before you act on any of it. This is marketing guidance, not legal advice.
Written by
Founder of Ad Hoc Digital. Leads strategy and works directly with every client firm on AI search, Local Services Ads, Google Ads and Meta ads.
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