How long does it take to start getting cited by ChatGPT?

Most brands with a structured approach see initial citation movement within 3-6 weeks. ChatGPT's strong recency preference, 76.4% of its citations come from content updated in the past 30 days, means structural and freshness improvements can surface relatively fast. Off-site authority signals (Reddit, reviews, backlinks) compound over 60-90 days.

Do I need to submit my content to ChatGPT or OpenAI directly?

No submission mechanism exists for organic citations. ChatGPT cites pages because its training data and retrieval layer encountered them as authoritative sources across the web. The path to citation is improving the web-wide consensus around your brand, not any direct submission process.

Which AI engine is easiest to rank in first?

Perplexity indexes live web content and responds quickly to freshness changes on third-party pages (Reddit, forums, editorial sites). Many brands see faster initial Perplexity citation gains than ChatGPT. Google AI Overviews respond fastest to structured-data and E-E-A-T improvements. Use your Promptive baseline data to prioritize by engine based on where your gap is smallest.

Does schema markup actually help with AI citations?

Yes, pages with FAQ schema earn citations at approximately 2.6× the rate of structurally equivalent pages without it. Note that FAQ and HowTo schema no longer produce Google rich results (HowTo since 2023; FAQPage since May 7 2026), but the markup still helps AI answer engines extract and cite structured content. JSON-LD with FAQPage and Article/BlogPosting types is the minimum viable schema stack for GEO in 2026.

How is GEO different from traditional SEO?

Traditional SEO optimizes for Google's document-ranking algorithm, backlinks, keyword density, page authority. GEO optimizes for extraction: whether an AI engine can identify, trust, and quote a specific claim from your content. GEO weights off-site brand consensus, content structure, data density, and freshness far more heavily than keyword matching. For a full comparison, see the GEO glossary.

How do I track my AI citation rate over time?

Manual spot-checking (prompting ChatGPT with your target queries and noting citations) works at small scale but doesn't scale across engines, query variants, or time. Promptive automates this, it tracks share of voice, citation rate, and sentiment across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, with weekly trend data. Run a free baseline audit to see where you stand before starting the sprint.

How to Get Cited by ChatGPT: A 30-Day GEO Sprint With Weekly Checkpoints