How dietitians get found by ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI

When someone asks an AI assistant to recommend a dietitian, the assistant doesn't pull a name from a private list. It often searches the web, reads a few pages, and writes an answer from what it found. You get mentioned by being easy to find and easy to read, on a website of your own. This guide covers how each assistant finds pages, what research says helps, and what to do this month. None of it guarantees a mention, but it improves your odds.

How AI assistants choose which dietitians to mention

AI assistants with web search don't keep a private list of dietitians. For a question like "IBS dietitian in Austin who does telehealth", they run searches, pull the most relevant pages, and pick short passages that answer the question. The exact ranking methods are not public and change often, so be wary of anyone who claims to know them.

In a February 2026 Pew Research Center survey of 5,119 US adults, about four in ten said they use AI chatbots to search for information, and 20% said they use them to get diet and fitness information.

What is clear is that an assistant can only use what it can find and read. If your specialties are only in Instagram captions, or your credentials are scattered across different profiles, there may be nothing clear for it to quote. Our guide to why ChatGPT might not recommend your practice walks through the most common causes one by one.

How each assistant finds pages today

Each assistant uses its own search index and crawler, so being visible in one doesn't mean you're visible in all. A crawler is the program that visits websites and reads their pages.

ChatGPT

OpenAI's help page on searching the web with ChatGPT says ChatGPT may search automatically when a question would benefit from current information. It says ChatGPT search "sometimes partners with other search providers" and rewrites the question into more targeted searches. The page links the privacy statements of Microsoft, the company behind Bing, and Shopify, so being in Bing is a sensible precaution.

Two details matter for a local practice. ChatGPT may use an approximate location from the person's IP address, so "dietitian near me" can become a search that includes a city name. And to be eligible at all, your site must allow OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, and your host or CDN (a service like Cloudflare that sits in front of your site) must let OpenAI's published addresses through. Even then, OpenAI says: "Placement is not guaranteed."

Claude

Anthropic runs a separate search crawler, Claude-SearchBot, and says blocking it may reduce your visibility in search results. Claude's web search answers include citations, and Claude may use a location inferred from the IP address for local questions.

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode

Google builds these answers from its regular search index. Its page on AI features and your website describes "query fan-out": the system runs several related searches and draws links from them. To be eligible, a page must be indexed and able to show in Google with a snippet.

Since August 31, 2026, there's one more condition. Your site must be included in Search Console's Search generative AI control, found under Settings. Include is the default, but it takes a minute to confirm. Google says the control isn't a ranking signal and doesn't affect AI training. Its guide to generative AI features adds that you need no AI text files or special schema markup, and that Google Search ignores llms.txt files.

Bing and Copilot

Bing's webmaster guidelines now cover Bing search, Copilot and "grounding" results. Grounding means the web pages an AI uses to back up its answer. A NOARCHIVE tag keeps your content out of Copilot answers and grounding results. A NOCACHE tag limits Copilot to your URL, title and snippet. Search your page source for both words, since some plugins add them. Bing is also plain about the limits: "GEO does not guarantee grounding or citations in AI experiences."

Perplexity

Perplexity's crawler documentation says its search crawler, PerplexityBot, surfaces and links websites in Perplexity search and isn't used to train AI models. Perplexity recommends allowing it in robots.txt and letting its published IP ranges through.

Where a solo dietitian can realistically win

For general nutrition questions, such as "what is a low-FODMAP diet?", AI assistants often cite large, well-known health websites. You can see this yourself by opening the sources list under the answer. That is hard for any individual practice to compete with. The realistic opportunity is provider-choice questions: a specific specialty, in a specific place, with a specific way of paying. Those questions are exactly what a clear practice website can answer, especially with a dedicated page for each specialty.

What the evidence says actually helps

Clear, specific, sourced writing on a page crawlers can read. Three findings are worth knowing.

Sources, quotations and statistics beat keywords

Research on "generative engine optimization" (Aggarwal et al., 2024) tested ways of editing web pages and measured how visible they were in AI-generated answers. Citing sources, adding quotations and adding statistics gave the biggest gains, a 30-40% relative improvement on the study's main visibility measure. Keyword stuffing offered little to no improvement, and on Perplexity it did 10% worse than the unedited pages.

The study used general questions, not local provider searches, so treat it as a direction. For a practice site, our reading is: link to the organizations behind your credentials, state real numbers about your practice (session length, fees, the states where you're licensed), and state your policies plainly. Never invent a statistic or a quote.

Schema markup alone barely moved AI citations

Schema markup is hidden code that labels facts on a page for search engines. Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added schema against 4,000 similar pages that didn't. Citations in AI Mode rose 2.4% and in ChatGPT 2.2%, both indistinguishable from zero. Citations in AI Overviews fell 4.6%, the only statistically significant change. Ahrefs concluded that adding schema "produced no major uplift". Accurate schema is fine, but don't pay for it expecting AI mentions.

AI crawlers read the page, not the scripts

A December 2024 analysis by Vercel found that ChatGPT's and Claude's crawlers don't run JavaScript. If your text only appears after JavaScript runs, some assistants may never see it. Bing's guidelines make the same point, warning against "hiding critical content behind client-side rendering".

Example: one practice's wording, before and after

The dietitian below is made up. The wording shows the pattern, not a real practice.

Before, on a fictional sports dietitian's home page:

Hi, I'm [Your Name]! I help active people fuel their passion and feel amazing. Let's work together!

A search for "sports dietitian in Columbus who does telehealth" has nothing here to match.

After:

[Your Name], MS, RDN, CSSD, is a registered dietitian nutritionist and Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics in Columbus, Ohio. [Your Name] works with adult runners and triathletes on fueling for training and race day. Sessions are in person in Columbus or by telehealth for clients in Ohio and Michigan. Practice is self-pay, with superbills on request. Book a 60-minute first session online.

The credential is spelled out (see how to write your credentials on your website), the key facts come first, and each sentence stands on its own. That matches Bing's guidelines: explicit facts, key information early, and consistent names.

And an answer-first FAQ entry for the same fictional practice:

Do you take insurance? No. The practice is self-pay, and the fee is listed on the Fees page. [Your Name] can give you a superbill after each session, which you can send to your insurer to ask about out-of-network reimbursement. Check with your plan first, because coverage for nutrition counseling varies.

What to do this month: a prioritized plan

Fix access first, then wording, then extra pages.

Week 1: make sure you can be found.

1. Have a website of your own. Directory and marketplace profiles help, but a site you control is the one place that describes your practice fully. If you don't have one yet, you can draft a free preview of your site.
2. Get indexed by Google and Bing. Add your site to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. In Search Console, open Settings, then Search generative AI, and confirm your site is included.
3. Don't block AI search crawlers by accident. Check your robots.txt and your host's bot settings against the crawler names in the table above. The official lists: OpenAI's bots and Anthropic's crawlers.

Week 2: make sure they can read it.

4. Put the words in the page itself. Right-click your home page, choose "View page source", and search for your specialty and city. If they aren't there, ask your builder's support about server rendering.
5. State the facts plainly. Near the top of your home page, write your full credential, your specialties, your city, the states you see telehealth clients in, how payment works and your booking link, in simple sentences.

Week 3: answer the questions clients ask.

6. Give each specialty its own page. A page titled "IBS dietitian in Austin, TX" is a far clearer match for that question than a single page listing everything.
7. Answer questions directly. Start each FAQ answer with the answer, then add detail, in about 40 to 60 words. Assistants quote short passages, so self-contained answers are easier to use.

Week 4: consistency and a baseline.

8. Use your name consistently. Use the same name and credentials on your website, LinkedIn and directory profiles, so it is clear they all describe the same person.
9. Keep it fast and up to date. Slow pages frustrate clients. Only change dates when you actually update content.
10. Run your first check using the method below, and save the results.

What doesn't help

Repeating keywords. It makes pages harder to read, the GEO study found it offered little to no improvement, and Bing's guidelines say "excessive repetition" can reduce visibility.

Special files and tags as a shortcut. There is no file or tag that guarantees a mention. Google ignores llms.txt, and schema alone barely moved AI citations in the Ahrefs study.

Buying a ChatGPT ad to get into the answer. OpenAI's ads help page says ads are labeled, appear below responses, and don't influence answers. Ads also aren't eligible to appear near personal health conversations.

Blocking every AI crawler to be safe. If you don't want your content used for training, block the training crawlers. Blocking the search crawlers too removes you from the answers you're hoping to appear in.

How to check whether AI mentions you

Ask a few assistants the kind of question a client would ask, such as "registered dietitian for PCOS in [your city]" or "dietitian who takes [insurance] near [your city]", and note which sources they mention. Results vary between assistants and over time, so check monthly, not daily. For a repeatable method, follow our free check for AI mentions.

Two free reports help too. Search Console's generative AI performance reports, open to all sites since August 31, 2026, show impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates for AI Overviews and AI Mode. Clicks aren't among the listed metrics. Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report that shows where your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing AI answers, including grounding queries and "Citation Share". Then use the dietitian website checklist to fill any gaps.