Definition ChatGPT Search activates when ChatGPT has web browsing enabled. The search index runs on Bing, but OpenAI also collects content through its own crawler (OAI-SearchBot).
How it works The query triggers the model's web search capability. The model pulls candidate pages from the search index. Page contents are summarized and answer synthesis runs. Each support sentence gets a source URL. Citations appear under the answer or as inline blue badges. Source selection rests on content quality, page structure, and domain trust.
Where you see it in Scope Trends The **Scope AI Search** > **ChatGPT** tab reports citation rate on your tracked queries. The **Citation Gap** report lists queries where competitors get cited and you do not.
Frequently asked questions **Which crawler does ChatGPT Search use?** OAI-SearchBot for citation retrieval, GPTBot for model training. Managed separately via robots.txt.
**What does it take to earn citations?** Clean question-answer structure, FAQ schema, citable data, and strong E-E-A-T signals.