Guides · Updated October 20, 2026

How to Get Your Brand Recommended by Gemini

Gemini sits on top of Google, so it’s tempting to assume that ranking on Google is enough. It isn’t quite. Gemini answers some questions from what the model already knows and grounds others in Google Search results, and one robots.txt token, Google-Extended, decides whether your pages can be used for that grounding at all.

The short version: don’t block Google-Extended by accident, get your key pages indexed with a snippet, get named on the pages Gemini cites for your buyers’ questions, and measure Gemini separately from ChatGPT, because they often disagree.

How Gemini builds an answer

Google’s developer docs describe the grounded flow. With Google Search available, the model looks at the prompt and decides whether a search would improve the answer. If it would, it writes one or more search queries, runs them, reads the results and returns an answer with citations to the sources (Gemini API docs). If it decides not to search, the answer comes from the model’s training.

Three things follow from what Google documents:

• Not every answer shows sources. In the Gemini app, sources appear in a Sources panel or inline when they’re available. Google says not all responses include them, and if there’s no Sources button, that response didn’t provide links (Gemini Apps Help).
• Grounding uses Google’s index. Google describes grounding as providing content from the Google Search index to the model at prompt time (Google crawler docs). A page Google hasn’t indexed can’t be part of it.
• Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode are different surfaces. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode may use different models and techniques, so their responses and links vary (Google Search Central). Check the surface your buyers actually use.

The takeaway: winning on ChatGPT doesn’t mean you win on Gemini. Track them separately.

Step 1: See what Gemini says about you today

• Write 5–10 questions a real buyer would ask, without your brand name: “best X for Y,” “alternatives to [category leader],” “X vs Y,” and one about a specific use case.
• Ask each one in a new Gemini chat, two or three times. Answers vary between runs.
• For each answer, note: was there a Sources button, were you named, in what position, how you were described, which competitors appeared, and every cited URL.

Split your notes by whether the answer showed sources. Missing from answers with sources means a page problem (Steps 2–4). Missing from answers without sources means a slower, reputation problem (Step 5).

Step 2: Decide on Google-Extended on purpose

Google-Extended isn’t a separate crawler. It’s a robots.txt token Google checks when it decides how content it already crawled may be used. Google says it controls whether your content may be used for training future Gemini models and for grounding in Gemini Apps and Grounding with Google Search on Vertex AI. It does not affect whether you’re included or ranked in Google Search (Google crawler docs).

What to check:

1. robots.txt. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for User-agent: Google-Extended. Many sites added a block for it to opt out of training. That same rule also keeps your pages out of grounding in Gemini Apps. If you want Gemini to cite you, that’s a trade-off to make knowingly.
2. Googlebot. Google says robots.txt rules for Googlebot are the control for how your site is crawled for Search, including its AI features. Never block Googlebot from pages you want found.
3. Hosting and CDN rules. Google lists allowing crawling “by any CDN or hosting infrastructure” as a basic requirement (Google Search Central). A blanket bot-blocking switch can undo a correct robots.txt.

Step 3: Be indexed, with a snippet

For Google’s AI features in Search, Google is explicit: to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, and there are no additional technical requirements (Google Search Central). The same index feeds Gemini’s grounding. So the basics carry most of the weight:

• Verify your site in Search Console and submit a sitemap, so you can see which pages are indexed and fix the ones that aren’t.
• Don’t limit snippets on key pages. noindex, nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet all limit what Google can show from a page. Keep them off your homepage, pricing, features and comparison pages.
• Put the important facts in text. What you do, who it’s for, pricing and key features should be readable text, linked from your other pages, not only in images or scripts.
• Keep Business Profile and Merchant Center current if you have them. Google lists both in its AI-features guidance.
• Skip the special files for Google. Google says you don’t need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema.org markup for its AI features. Structured data is still worth having, as long as it matches what the page visibly says.

Step 4: Get named on the pages Gemini cites

Go back to the cited URLs from Step 1. Mark the ones that name competitors and not you. Those are your targets.

• “Best X” roundups: send the author facts they can check: what you do differently, who it’s for, current pricing, and a free account to test. Updating a page Gemini already cites beats writing a new page it never finds.
• App stores, review sites and directories that show up in your citations: complete your listing so it says plainly what the product does and who it’s for, and ask real customers for detailed reviews. Never write or buy reviews.
• Your own answer pages: use the buyer’s question as a heading and answer it in the first sentence or two. Publish honest comparison pages (“[You] vs [Competitor]”) that say when the other product is the better fit.
• Evidence, not keywords. In the GEO study from Princeton and IIT Delhi researchers (KDD 2024), adding citations, quotations and statistics made sources more visible in generative engine answers, while keyword stuffing did little (Aggarwal et al.). It’s a research result, not a guarantee, and it didn’t test Gemini specifically.

Step 5: Be described the same way everywhere

When Gemini answers without searching, it relies on what the model learned in training. Google doesn’t publish how that shapes brand recommendations, and you can’t submit your brand to it. What tends to help any model know a product is being described consistently, in the same words, on many independent pages (your site, directories, reviews, articles, community threads), over months, not days. Our numbers above show why this matters: the same question often gets a different first pick from Gemini than from ChatGPT.

Step 6: Measure on a schedule

Re-run the same questions weekly or monthly and compare:

• The share of answers that name you, split by answers with and without sources
• Your position, and whether the description is accurate
• Which competitors appear, and whether Gemini’s picks differ from ChatGPT’s
• Which domains Gemini cites, and whether your target pages have started naming you

For Google’s AI features in Search, Search Console counts clicks and impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside the Performance report’s “Web” search type, together with regular results (Google Search Central). It doesn’t show what the answer said, so you still need to read the answers. Our guides on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude cover how the other assistants differ.

Common mistakes

• Blocking Google-Extended to opt out of training without realizing it also keeps your pages out of grounding in Gemini Apps.
• A leftover noindex or nosnippet on pages you want buyers to find.
• Assuming a ChatGPT win carries over. In our checks Gemini’s first pick matched ChatGPT’s only about a third of the time.
• Testing with your brand name in the question. “Is [Brand] good?” doesn’t tell you whether Gemini recommends you to someone who hasn’t heard of you.
• Judging from one answer. Gemini doesn’t ground every answer, and answers vary between runs.

FAQ

Sources

• Google Search Central, “Google’s common crawlers” (Google-Extended)
• Google Search Central, “AI features and your website”
• Gemini API docs, “Grounding with Google Search”
• Gemini Apps Help, “View related sources and double-check responses from Gemini Apps”
• Aggarwal et al., “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization,” KDD 2024
• WhatTheBotSaid check data, 79 Gemini answers across 20 checks, as of October 20, 2026