What AI Overviews, AI Mode, Yandex's Search with Alice and ChatGPT search are, where they get their information, which site settings keep you out of their answers, and how to write pages that AI tools link to.
A Google search used to return a list of links, and people chose where to click. Now a ready-made answer assembled by AI often sits above that list: in Google these are AI Overviews and AI Mode, in Yandex it is Search with Alice, and many people also search directly in ChatGPT. These answers include links to the sites the information came from. Here is how this kind of search works and what to do so that your website is among those links.
What has changed
An AI answer is put together from several pages and shown straight away, so for simple questions like "what is a landing page" or "how long does a business card website take" people often get the answer without visiting any site. They click through when they need details, prices or examples of work, or when they are ready to contact a company.
This applies in Uzbekistan too: according to Google's help pages, AI Overviews are available in the country, including in Russian and Uzbek.
For a business this means two things. Informational articles may bring fewer clicks than before, but they affect whether AI mentions your company at all. Service pages, case studies and contact details matter even more, because that is where people who are ready to order land.
Where AI gets its information
Google states plainly in its documentation for site owners that AI Overviews and AI Mode have no extra requirements. A page has to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. The same rules apply as for regular results: a site that crawlers can access, internal links, good page experience and important information in text form. Google does not require special AI files or extra markup.
Google counts clicks from AI features in Search Console, in the Performance report together with regular web search.
Since 2025, Yandex has run Search with Alice, which replaced its earlier Neuro feature. It shows an expanded answer with subheadings and lists above the regular results, with links to the source sites below it. For the Russian-speaking audience in Uzbekistan this is a noticeable channel, so your site should be indexed properly by Yandex's crawler and free of errors in Yandex Webmaster.
ChatGPT has its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, and that is the one that determines whether your site can appear in ChatGPT search answers. OpenAI's other crawler, GPTBot, collects data for training models and has no effect on search visibility. If OAI-SearchBot is blocked in robots.txt, your site will not appear in ChatGPT search answers.
What to check on your site first
- Indexing. Open Google Search Console and Yandex Webmaster and check how many pages are indexed and which errors are reported. A page that is not indexed will not appear in AI answers either.
- Your robots.txt file. Make sure Googlebot, YandexBot and OAI-SearchBot are not blocked. If you do not want your content used to train models, you can block GPTBot; that does not affect ChatGPT search.
- Hosting and CDN settings. Bot protection on the server or in Cloudflare sometimes blocks search crawlers even when robots.txt allows them.
- The nosnippet and max-snippet meta tags. They limit which text Google can show from your page, including in AI answers. Check that they are not set where they are not needed.
How to write pages that AI cites
There is no separate "optimisation for AI", but some practices help both people and AI find the answer faster:
- Answer the question at the start. If a section is called "How much does a business card website cost", the first paragraph should explain what drives the price, not tell the company's history.
- Base headings on clients' questions. Headings like "Development timeline" or "What the work includes" help both readers and search engines see where each answer is.
- Be specific: timelines, stages, what a service includes, which languages the site supports, your address and opening hours. General phrases about quality and a personal approach give nothing to clients or to AI.
- Keep important information in text rather than images. Prices on a banner or terms in a PDF are harder to read than plain text on the page.
- Add an FAQ section to service pages.
- Use structured data (Schema.org markup) for your organisation, services and FAQs, but only where it matches the visible text. Google requires that.
- Keep information current. Outdated prices and timelines hurt you in both regular search and AI answers.
What helps beyond your website
AI builds answers from many sources, so what is written about your company elsewhere matters too:
- an up-to-date Google Business Profile and Yandex Maps listing with address, phone, hours, services and photos;
- client reviews on maps and directories;
- mentions in industry directories, articles and round-ups;
- the same company name, address and phone number everywhere your business appears.
Languages
People ask AI questions in their own language. If your site has Russian, Uzbek and English versions, AI can find an answer for each audience. Translations need to be complete and linked to each other with hreflang markup; otherwise search engines may not recognise them as the same page in different languages.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an llms.txt file or special AI markup?
Not for Google. Its documentation says plainly that appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode does not require new machine-readable files or special markup. The usual Search requirements are enough.
How can I tell whether visitors come from AI answers?
Google shows clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search Console together with regular web search. Visits from ChatGPT can be seen in your site analytics under traffic sources.
Should I block AI from my site?
If you block search crawlers, your site disappears from AI answers and, in the case of Googlebot or YandexBot, from regular search too. You can block crawlers that collect data for model training, such as GPTBot or Google-Extended, if you do not want to share your content with them. That does not affect how you appear in search.
What if my site is old and poorly indexed?
Fix the technical problems first: indexing, speed, the mobile version and site structure. Sometimes building a new site is easier. We explained how to move without losing rankings in our article on redesign, and covered regular checks for indexing errors in "Website Support After Launch".
Want to check whether Google, Yandex and ChatGPT can see your website? Get in touch: we will review indexing, settings and content and tell you what to fix.
