Getting traffic from AI (ChatGPT, etc.) - is “AI SEO” real?

[afajansmedya]

Hey guys,

Something interesting happened today.

I got an order on my e-commerce site, and when I checked the source, it came from ChatGPT. I’m not exactly sure how this happened, but it got me thinking.

Is it actually possible to:

• Get traffic from AI tools
  instead of traditional search engines?

Like:
Is there something like “AI SEO”?
Can you optimize your content to appear in AI answers (ChatGPT, etc.)?

I feel like in the future:

• Traditional search engines might lose importance
• AI platforms could start running ads

If there’s a way to do this, getting free and high-quality traffic would be huge.
Has anyone tested this or figured out a way to rank in AI answers?

 

[Utakata]

Uhh probably can happen? I once saw one guy got scammed because ChatGPT give him fraudulent link lol, so i guess anything is possible.

 

[afajansmedya]

Uhh probably can happen? I once saw one guy got scammed because ChatGPT give him fraudulent link lol, so i guess anything is possible.

Yes true, but that actually proves there’s some kind of influence there. If AI can send traffic (even accidentally), there’s probably a way to optimize for it. Still, that’s pretty bad to hear though...

 

[poka1]

yes 100%, theres a site called microworkers which pays for small tasks, for example you can pay 50 people .30 cents to have a conversation with AI and ask for your business/website and kind of train the ai to bring up your business if someone else mentions it.

 

[afajansmedya]

yes 100%, theres a site called microworkers which pays for small tasks, for example you can pay 50 people .30 cents to have a conversation with AI and ask for your business/website and kind of train the ai to bring up your business if someone else mentions it.

That’s a really good. Have you actually tested it or seen consistent results?

 

[CarlosTheGaucho]

Actually all serious SEO agencies are now also incorporating some sort of element regarding the AI visibility.

Need to educate myself with this regard also, a friend of mine should be an expert in this, so may get more insights soon

 

[ads studio]

Interesting observation, Right now there’s no real “AI SEO” system you can directly optimize for like Google, but you can increase your chances by focusing on strong brand presence, clear structured content, and being cited across trusted sources that AI models tend to reference.

 

[afajansmedya]

Actually all serious SEO agencies are now also incorporating some sort of element regarding the AI visibility.

Need to educate myself with this regard also, a friend of mine should be an expert in this, so may get more insights soon

I’d really appreciate an update from you when you learn more about it.

 

[Lindolas]

Hey guys,

Something interesting happened today.

I got an order on my e-commerce site, and when I checked the source, it came from ChatGPT. I’m not exactly sure how this happened, but it got me thinking.

Is it actually possible to:

• Get traffic from AI tools
  instead of traditional search engines?

Like:
Is there something like “AI SEO”?
Can you optimize your content to appear in AI answers (ChatGPT, etc.)?

I feel like in the future:

• Traditional search engines might lose importance
• AI platforms could start running ads

If there’s a way to do this, getting free and high-quality traffic would be huge.
Has anyone tested this or figured out a way to rank in AI answers?

If it came from ChatGPT it means somebody found you using ChatGTP instead of Google for example, so an actual person, not an AI.

 

[afajansmedya]

If it came from ChatGPT it means somebody found you using ChatGTP instead of Google for example, so an actual person, not an AI.

Yes, it was already a real order. I’m also planning to rank higher in GPT searches and get more orders.

 

[HaxTuTorial]

Yes, it’s definitely becoming a thing, but I wouldn’t treat it like old-school SEO.

AI tools seem to pull from a mix of strong pages, trusted mentions, reviews, comparison posts, Reddit/forum discussions, structured content, and brands that are clearly described online. So the play is basically: make your site easy to understand, have clear product/category pages, publish comparison/how-to content, get mentioned on other sites/forums, and build real brand/entity signals.

I’d call it AI visibility more than AI SEO. You’re not just trying to rank one page anymore, you’re trying to make the AI confident enough to recommend your brand when someone asks for options. Traditional SEO still matters, but mentions, trust, and clear positioning are probably going to matter a lot more going forward.

 

[afajansmedya]

Yes, it’s definitely becoming a thing, but I wouldn’t treat it like old-school SEO.

AI tools seem to pull from a mix of strong pages, trusted mentions, reviews, comparison posts, Reddit/forum discussions, structured content, and brands that are clearly described online. So the play is basically: make your site easy to understand, have clear product/category pages, publish comparison/how-to content, get mentioned on other sites/forums, and build real brand/entity signals.

I’d call it AI visibility more than AI SEO. You’re not just trying to rank one page anymore, you’re trying to make the AI confident enough to recommend your brand when someone asks for options. Traditional SEO still matters, but mentions, trust, and clear positioning are probably going to matter a lot more going forward.

It sounds more like an ecosystem play rather than classic SEO.

 

[Starblazer]

Younger users are switching to AI tools from search engines. So, SEOs are heavily focusing on AI already. But in most cases, AI scrapes and uses top ranking pages. So, traditional SEO works to rank for AI tools too until AI becomes independent.

 

[afajansmedya]

Younger users are switching to AI tools from search engines. So, SEOs are heavily focusing on AI already. But in most cases, AI scrapes and uses top ranking pages. So, traditional SEO works to rank for AI tools too until AI becomes independent.

So for now it’s still heavily tied to traditional SEO, but probably shifting more towards direct AI visibility over time.

 

[Linktechy]

Hey guys,

Something interesting happened today.

I got an order on my e-commerce site, and when I checked the source, it came from ChatGPT. I’m not exactly sure how this happened, but it got me thinking.

Is it actually possible to:

• Get traffic from AI tools
  instead of traditional search engines?

Like:
Is there something like “AI SEO”?
Can you optimize your content to appear in AI answers (ChatGPT, etc.)?

I feel like in the future:

• Traditional search engines might lose importance
• AI platforms could start running ads

If there’s a way to do this, getting free and high-quality traffic would be huge.
Has anyone tested this or figured out a way to rank in AI answers?

Yeah, that’s actually becoming more common now.

AI tools like ChatGPT can recommend websites when people ask questions, so yes, it’s possible to get traffic from AI instead of just search engines.

There’s no real “AI SEO” formula yet, but the best way is still the same: make helpful, clear content that answers real questions. If your site is useful and easy to understand, AI tools are more likely to mention it.

 

[Starblazer]

So for now it’s still heavily tied to traditional SEO, but probably shifting more towards direct AI visibility over time.

Yes, you can't submit your sitemap to AI tools yet. They don't crawl random sites for data. There should be some way for them to find your website - that's usually through SERPs and social media. Similar to how we instruct search engine crawlers with robots.txt, we instruct AI crawlers with llms.txt. There is not much we can do to push AI tools to rank our site better.