What should you check first if your clinic does not appear in AI answers?

1. Choose the page patients should see and open it yourself

Start with the URL most relevant to the question. For example, use the hours and directions page to check clinic hours. In a signed-out mobile browser, confirm the correct address opens, the body is readable as text, and navigation links to the page.

If the site opens, check for search restrictions with your developer. Look for a leftover noindex directive from testing, robots.txt rules that block search crawlers, and hosting security settings that limit access for those crawlers. For ChatGPT web search, consult OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot documentation.

2. Check crawling and indexing separately

Crawling means a search bot retrieves a page. Indexing means the search system adds the retrieved page to its index. URL Inspection in Google Search Console shows what Google has indexed separately from the live test results. Verify indexing even when the live test confirms access. NAVER Search Advisor provides crawl, indexing, and diagnostic information.

If a page opens at multiple URLs, confirm which address you want to use as the preferred one. Point internal links and the sitemap to it and check that the change takes effect after launch.

3. Ask under the same conditions and read the answers

Open a fresh conversation with search enabled and run one question with the clinic name and one using only the area and specialty. Save the date, service, exact wording, full answer, and source links. If the name appears with an old address, check the address and source. If the clinic appears only when named in the question, record that and check whether the site provides the service information needed to answer the non-branded question.