Gemini SEO and Copilot SEO: what to check first

Gemini is Google’s AI assistant and Copilot is Microsoft’s. When a customer asks either one for a business like yours, the answer might name you, describe you wrongly or leave you out. Gemini SEO and Copilot SEO are the work of making sure each tool can find your pages and has your details right. They are two jobs with a third in between: the AI answers Google shows inside its own search results.

Here’s an example. Say a customer in Penrith asks Gemini, Copilot and Google Search for an electrician who does switchboard upgrades. Gemini might name your business with an old phone number. Copilot might leave you out. Google’s search page might show an AI summary that links to a competitor. Each product reads different sources, offers different controls and reports different data, so you have to check each one on its own.

The useful question for an owner is simple. When a customer asks one of these tools for a business like yours, does the answer name you, describe you correctly and link to a page that helps? Our AI SEO agency works on the pages and listings behind those answers. This guide shows what to check in Google and in Bing, then how to read what each product says about you.

Improving how a business appears in AI-written answers is called generative engine optimisation (GEO). Read what is GEO for the full definition. Here we focus on Gemini Apps, Microsoft Copilot and the Google Search features that are often confused with them.

What does this mean for your business?

Nobody can guarantee a place in a Gemini or Copilot answer. You can check what each tool says and fix the details behind it. Here is where to start:

1. Ask Gemini, Copilot and Google a few customer questions and save each answer with the date and every source link. Do this before you change anything.
2. Check that Google has stored your main pages and lets them show a short text excerpt.
3. Correct wrong details at the place they come from, such as your website, your Google Business Profile or your Bing Places listing.
4. Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools so you can see when Copilot cites you.
5. Ask the same questions again later and keep each product on its own line.

What does Gemini SEO mean and how is Copilot different?

Gemini SEO means making your business easy for Google’s Gemini products to find and describe. Copilot SEO is the same job for Microsoft’s assistant, which Microsoft reports on through Bing Webmaster Tools.⁶ The two share a goal but not a toolbox.

Three products get mixed up, so separate them first. Gemini Apps is Google’s Gemini app and website. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are the AI answers inside Google Search. Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s assistant. Bing also shows its own AI summaries.

Google documents its Search AI features separately from the specified Gemini uses that Google-Extended controls.¹³ A result in one product doesn’t show that your business appears in another. Record the product name beside each answer.

The picture below puts the same three products on three cards. Each card shows the control that product gives you and the check to make.

Check each product separately

Gemini Apps

Control: Google-Extended

Specified training and grounding uses

Check: saved answers and shown sources

Google Search

AI Overviews + AI Mode

Indexing + snippets + Search generative AI setting

Check: Search Console reports

Microsoft Copilot

Bing Places + Webmaster Tools

Keep business details accurate

AI Performance: citations, not position

An appearance in one does not prove another.

Can Google find and use your pages?

Google must have stored the page for Search, which is called indexing. The page must also be allowed to show a short excerpt, called a snippet.¹ Check your site’s Search generative AI setting in Search Console too. Search Console is Google’s tool for checking how your site appears in search. Google’s current guidance requires participation in that setting for its Search AI features.²

Use Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to check whether Google has stored a page for Search. “URL is on Google” means the page is eligible to appear and not that it will.⁴ If a priority page is missing, read the stated reason before you choose a repair.

Next, check whether the page carries an instruction that blocks the excerpt or keeps it out of Search. Google documents these controls as nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex.¹ Ask your developer to explain any restriction on a priority service page before changing it.

Google says its Search AI features need no extra AI text files or special code labels for page facts.¹ Its advice for generative AI features is that optimising for them is still SEO.² Our guides on Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode cover those two features in depth.

Merchant Center is where shops send Google their product details. Google also says products and services can become more visible in these features through Business Profiles and Merchant Center feeds.² That statement is about Google Search. We found no Google page saying a Business Profile feeds Gemini Apps, so check Gemini’s answers directly and don’t assume.

What does Google-Extended control?

Automated page readers are called crawlers. A small public file called robots.txt tells them which parts of a site they may read. It can also express permission for specified uses of your content. Google-Extended is Google’s name for this control, which covers training future Gemini models and supplying retrieved material when supported Gemini products answer. Google calls that second use grounding.³

Google-Extended does not affect a site’s inclusion or ranking in Google Search.³ It is a content-use setting and not a separate visitor. Google collects pages using its existing automated readers. Googlebot is the reader used for Search, so its access rules still matter for Google Search.³

Decide separately which uses of your content to permit. OpenAI also separates its search visitor from the visitor used for model training.¹¹ Our guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt explains those choices.

How do you check what Gemini says about your business?

Ask Gemini a customer question and check the business details in its answer. When sources are available, Google says the Sources control may appear below the answer or within it. Some responses contain no source links.⁵

1. Write five customer questions, each with a service and a suburb or city.
2. Ask each one in a fresh chat from the same account, on the same day.
3. Record whether your business is named and whether the details are right.
4. Open the Sources button if there is one. Note whether each link is your page, a profile or someone else’s page.
5. If no sources appear, record “no sources shown”. Compare the business details with your own records but leave the origin of those details unknown.

A listed source is a lead to inspect and not proof of how Gemini built the answer. If a source carries a wrong phone number or an old service, fix it with its owner and run the same question again later.

What should you check in Bing for Copilot?

Start by adding your site to Bing Webmaster Tools. If it is already in Google Search Console, Bing lets you import it. Bing says imported sites are verified automatically.⁹ That gives you Microsoft’s own reports on how your content appears in AI answers.

The AI Performance report shows how often your content is cited as a source. Being cited means the tool linked to your page as a source. The report covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. Microsoft launched the report as a public preview on 10 February 2026.⁶ The table shows what each part of it can and can’t tell you. The last two parts came later and have their own limits.

Microsoft recommends clear headings, tables and question sections to make key information easier to find. It also recommends keeping pages current.⁶ For pages already stored for search but cited less often, it suggests reviewing clarity, structure and completeness.⁶

For a local business, Microsoft also recommends Bing Places so address, hours and contact details stay current. Bing Places is Microsoft’s listing for local businesses. Microsoft says this helps a business stay eligible for AI-generated responses.⁶ Our walkthrough on how to get your business on ChatGPT includes the Bing Places check step by step.

Kavera note: Our Sydney trades study asked 50 unbranded questions across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. It did not test Gemini Apps or Copilot, so our own data cannot tell you how either behaves for Sydney trades.

Does appearing in Bing Search also matter for ChatGPT?

It may help. OpenAI does not say Bing is its only source. OpenAI says ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers. It typically rewrites your question into targeted queries and sends them to those providers.¹⁰ Its help page includes a link to Microsoft’s privacy statement among those providers.¹⁰

So a Bing problem is worth fixing for Copilot. It may also help elsewhere, although we wouldn’t call that proven for ChatGPT. ChatGPT has its own search robot, OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI says sites that opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.¹¹ Our ChatGPT SEO guide covers that product in full.

How do you verify a mention or a source link?

Open the original answer and then open the page behind each link. Search answers can be incomplete, outdated or wrong, which is why OpenAI tells users to open a cited source and check that it supports the answer.¹⁰ Apply the same habit to every product.

Ask four questions of each answer:

• Is the business named, with the name spelled the way you trade?
• Do the phone number, hours and service area match your own site?
• Does the linked page say what the answer claims it says?
• Is the link yours, a listing you control or a page someone else owns?

For a Copilot error, compare the linked page with your Bing listing before you decide who should make the correction. For a Gemini answer with no sources, record the wrong detail without guessing where it came from. Keep the unresolved source in your next check.

How should you compare Gemini, Copilot and Google results?

Keep the same questions and log each product on its own line. Never merge the results into one score. The products use different sources, so the same business can be named in one and missing from another.

Kavera note: In our Sydney study, 47 questions had completed answers from all four engines it tested. Only 6 of them shared a business name across every answer. That is why we log each product separately. We also keep failed captures apart from answers that left a business out, because a failure says nothing about the business.

Our Sydney trades AI search index shows the full 50-question method. Measure AI visibility explains how to run a smaller version for one business.

What should you fix first?

Save the current answers first. Then use this order to choose the first fix and check the remaining items after it.

1. Priority pages missing from Google Search, blocked from showing excerpts or excluded through Search Console’s Search generative AI setting.²
2. Wrong business details on your Google Business Profile, Bing Places listing or website.
3. A service page that does not answer the question customers ask before they call.
4. Bing Webmaster Tools access, so you can review combined citation activity across Copilot, Bing summaries and supported partner products.⁶
5. A repeat check against the answers saved before the work, with Gemini Apps, Google Search and Copilot kept separate.

Choose the first correction from the problems you found. Report access, answer accuracy and enquiries on separate lines. Then a repaired setting won’t be mistaken for a new customer result.

What does help with Gemini and Copilot cost?

We don’t sell Gemini or Copilot as separate products. The work sits inside our SEO plans. Our AI SEO agency can tell you which page to fix first. Nobody can guarantee a place in a Gemini or Copilot answer.

Our SEO audit is free and includes a technical, keyword, competitor and Google Business Profile review with a prioritised roadmap. Implementation is separate unless retained. Monthly plans start at Suburb SEO, $890/month + GST. Compare the SEO packages for scope and terms. No SEO package guarantees rankings, leads or revenue.