# Getting cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity: what actually works > Generative engines cite what they can read, structure and verify. Five concrete moves — including serving your pages as Markdown — and what is a waste of time. **Version HTML :** https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/getting-cited-by-chatgpt-and-perplexity-what-works **Langue :** en-GB --- **On this page** Make your pages machine-readable Write to be quoted Be checkable What is a waste of time Systems # Getting cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity: what actually works « ChatGPT recommends our competitors, not us. » The cause is rarely mysterious: your pages are hard for a machine to read, and your claims cannot be checked anywhere. 10 July 20266 min readBy Sébastien Joumel **This site does to itself what this note describes**Every page you are reading also exists as Markdown, and an agent that asks for that format gets it at the same address. Here is how. ## Make your pages machine-readable A model crawling the web receives HTML loaded with menus, scripts and banners. The worse the signal-to-noise ratio, the less of your page survives. Three moves, in order of effect: - **Serve a Markdown version** of every page, declared in the head and available at the same address when an agent asks for it; - **Publish an `llms.txt`** at the root: the site’s table of contents on one page, one description line per link; - **Explicitly allow AI crawlers** in `robots.txt` — and check that your host does not block them by default, which happens more often than you would think. ## Write to be quoted Generative engines quote self-contained passages. A paragraph that only makes sense after the previous three will never be picked up. ### A complete answer at the top Sixty to ninety words, right after the heading, answering the page’s implicit question on their own. That is the most quoted passage on any page. ### One heading = one question « How much does an AI agent cost? » rather than « Our pricing model ». People ask questions; models look for answers. ### Tables A comparison table is a fact that is already structured. Tables are over-represented in citations — the best effort-to-result ratio on this list. ## Be checkable A model choosing between two sources prefers the one that can be verified. Date your pages, name the author, cite sources with a link, and state what you do not do. > A page that says « market leader » is quotable nowhere. A page that says « three to five days, measured across eleven jobs » is quotable everywhere. That is why our industry pages show ranges rather than promises, and why they say plainly what an agent will never do. ## What is a waste of time **Stuffing pages with keywords.** It never worked well for classic search; it does not work at all for generative engines, which summarise meaning. **Publishing near-identical pages.** Thirty city pages that differ only by the city name collapse into one — and it will be a competitor’s that gets cited. **Paying to « be in the AIs ».** There is no slot to buy inside a generated answer. What exists is readable, dated, checkable content — and patience. **Read on the site** - [What we do](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/#faire) — including the visibility system - [AI for e-commerce](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/ai-ecommerce) — product pages, readable by machines - [The survey of your ten systems](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/contact) — free, delivered within 72 hours ## Other notes [Systems · 2 September 2026Your document base, or why the agent answers beside the pointAn agent is only worth what it can read. The four defects that produce answers beside the point — duplicates, undated versions, scanned PDFs, implicit context — and the preparation that fixes them.](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/why-your-agent-answers-beside-the-point)[Responsible AI · 14 August 2026« What if it makes things up? » — getting an agent to cite its sourcesA model produces a plausible sentence, not a true one. The four designs that make invention visible, and the single rule that matters: every claim points to its source.](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/what-if-it-makes-things-up-getting-an-agent-to-cite)[Systems · 4 September 2026AI agent or plain automation: the £20,000 questionA third of the use cases brought to us need no model at all. How to tell a workflow from an agent, and why getting it wrong is expensive in both directions.](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/ai-agent-or-plain-automation-the-20k-question) [All notes →](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog) First call — fifteen minutes ## We will tell you which system to open first. Describe the task that costs you the most. We will tell you what is feasible, how long it takes and what it costs. If the answer is no, you will leave with the two reasons why. [Request the survey](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/contact) [Write to the agency](https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/contact) --- ## Autres langues - fr-FR : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/blog/etre-cite-par-chatgpt-et-perplexity-ce-qui-marche.md - en-GB : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/en/blog/getting-cited-by-chatgpt-and-perplexity-what-works.md - de-DE : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/de/blog/von-chatgpt-und-perplexity-zitiert-werden.md - es-ES : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/es/blog/que-chatgpt-y-perplexity-le-citen-lo-que-funciona.md - it-IT : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/it/blog/farsi-citare-da-chatgpt-e-perplexity.md - pt-PT : https://agence-intelligence-artificielle.eu/pt/blog/ser-citado-pelo-chatgpt-e-pela-perplexity.md