- Jun 20, 2026
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We all keep debating whether artificial intelligence, umm I mean super intelligence (sorry Mr. President), is coming for the BDC.
Meanwhile a buyer in your town is asking ChatGPT where to get a deal on a used Tahoe, and your website might not even be letting it in the door.
Everybody's pitching AEO and GEO right now, aka getting your store to show up in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity answers. None of it matters if the bots can't read your site. And when they can't, nothing on your end tells you.
Two quick checks:
1) Go to yourstore.com/robots.txt and ctrl+F for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. If any of them have Disallow: / under them, or you see User-agent: * followed by Disallow: /, you're locking them out. (GPTBot is the training bot, different conversation.)
2) Pull up a used VDP, view the source (ctrl+U) and ctrl+F the price. Try it with and without the comma. If it's not in there, it's probably getting loaded by javascript, and ChatGPT might be looking at a car with photos and no price.
I wrote up the full 15 minute check, including the firewall piece (that's the sneaky one):
autolander.ai
Who's brave enough to try it? Post what you find, even if you pass. And the website and SEO people on here, am I overblowing this or are you seeing it too? This thread is for everyone to discuss their positions on it as well as methods on how to rank.
Meanwhile a buyer in your town is asking ChatGPT where to get a deal on a used Tahoe, and your website might not even be letting it in the door.
Everybody's pitching AEO and GEO right now, aka getting your store to show up in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity answers. None of it matters if the bots can't read your site. And when they can't, nothing on your end tells you.
Two quick checks:
1) Go to yourstore.com/robots.txt and ctrl+F for OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. If any of them have Disallow: / under them, or you see User-agent: * followed by Disallow: /, you're locking them out. (GPTBot is the training bot, different conversation.)
2) Pull up a used VDP, view the source (ctrl+U) and ctrl+F the price. Try it with and without the comma. If it's not in there, it's probably getting loaded by javascript, and ChatGPT might be looking at a car with photos and no price.
I wrote up the full 15 minute check, including the firewall piece (that's the sneaky one):
Can ChatGPT and Claude Read Your Dealership Website?
A 15-minute check of whether ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools can read your dealership website: robots.txt, firewalls, JavaScript and VDP text.
autolander.ai
Who's brave enough to try it? Post what you find, even if you pass. And the website and SEO people on here, am I overblowing this or are you seeing it too? This thread is for everyone to discuss their positions on it as well as methods on how to rank.
