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ChatGPT Search Brand Mentions Tracking and AI Visibility: Perplexity Brand Monitoring (Official)

Official OpenAI publisher rules for ChatGPT Search, plus how we monitor mentions next to Perplexity. UTM referrals are not the mention row.

ChatGPT Search brand mentions and Perplexity brand monitoring get stuffed into one brief because both look like "AI search." Officially they are different products. OpenAI documents ChatGPT Search for publishers in the Publishers and Developers FAQ and the crawler overview. Perplexity documents a Search API and an Agent API for developers. Neither vendor sells you a mention dashboard. That is the monitoring layer we add.

The mention log we run is Promptwatch. Paid plans store ChatGPT Search answers and Perplexity UI answers daily, with citation analytics. Essential is $95/mo. Explore is free, ChatGPT only, 10 prompts. Kick-off is $199/mo with unlimited projects and 10 seats.

Any public website can appear. For summaries and snippets, allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt. Sites that opt out will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though navigational links may still appear. OpenAI recommends allowing published IP ranges (searchbot.json).

GPTBot is training. ChatGPT-User is a user (or Custom GPT) fetch. Do not mix the three. Blocking GPTBot is a training decision. Blocking OAI-SearchBot is a Search decision.

When a click happens, ChatGPT includes utm_source=chatgpt.com on the referral URL. That is the official analytics hook. Most answers never create a session. A mention can still win or lose a shortlist with zero UTM. We report mentions and referrals as two lines.

What "official" means for Perplexity

Perplexity's Search API returns ranked URLs (title, url, snippet). Their docs say: use Search when you need raw results. For an LLM answer with citations inside an app you ship, use the Agent API. Neither API is a brand-mention monitor against what a buyer sees in Perplexity. We do not scrape the Search API and call it visibility.

Consumer Perplexity still footnotes more than ChatGPT. That is why both columns sit in Promptwatch.

How we run the official stack plus monitoring

  1. Allow OAI-SearchBot on citation candidates. Confirm the CDN is not blocking the published ranges.
  2. Add a GA4 view for utm_source=chatgpt.com so those hits do not vanish into Referral.
  3. Load the same buyer prompts into Promptwatch for ChatGPT and Perplexity.
  4. Agent Analytics for the crawl. Visitor analytics (script or GTM) for the click if it arrives.
  5. Keep GSC generative reports for Google Overviews. Reading.

Otterly ($29, Gemini/Claude add-ons, seven-day lag), Peec ($95, three models, Claude Enterprise), and Profound Starter ($99 annual, ChatGPT only) are inherited monitors. Profound Starter will not do Perplexity. Ahrefs and Semrush stay.

How to get cited by ChatGPT is the page work. Professional is $245/mo. Business is $579/mo.

FAQ

Is the UTM always present?

OpenAI says ChatGPT includes it on referral URLs. In-app browsers can still strip referrers. A quiet GA4 line is not "we were never mentioned."

Does allowing GPTBot replace OAI-SearchBot?

No.

Can we use the Perplexity Search API instead of Promptwatch?

You can count whether your domain appeared in raw results. That is not the consumer answer. Do not report it as brand visibility.

What to do this week

  1. Read the OpenAI bots page and the publishers FAQ.
  2. Allow OAI-SearchBot. Add the GA4 UTM view.
  3. Load 15 prompts into Promptwatch Essential ($95) on ChatGPT and Perplexity.
  4. Report mentions and chatgpt.com referrals as two lines.
  5. Email hello@1001seomedia.com if you want the official crawl work and the mention log run together.

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