ChatGPT ~ Using Google Search?

ChatGPT Appears To Use Google Search As A Fallback

SEO consultant Aleyda Solís recently uncovered an intriguing behavior in ChatGPT’s web browsing capabilities: when Bing fails to index a page, ChatGPT may turn to Google’s search snippets as a fallback source of information.

The Experiment

To test how quickly ChatGPT (with web browsing enabled) can discover new content, Aleyda created a fresh page titled “LLMs.txt Generators” on her site LearningAISearch.com. She immediately asked ChatGPT to find the page, but it couldn’t. Instead, it responded that the URL might not be indexed or could be outdated.

Curiously, when Aleyda posed the same question to Google Gemini, it successfully fetched and summarized the live content, even though the page had just been created.

She then submitted the page to both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for indexing. Google indexed it promptly. Bing, however, struggled.

The Reveal

After Google began displaying the page in search results, Aleyda returned to ChatGPT. This time, ChatGPT provided a partial summary of the page, mentioning only one of the tools listed. When she asked for the source, ChatGPT stated it had found a “cached snippet via web search”, likely from “search engine indexing.”

The Search Engine Journal is reporting that the snippet ChatGPT provided matched Google’s search result, not Bing’s, which had still failed to index the page. This strongly suggests that ChatGPT was referencing Google’s publicly visible search snippets to answer the query.

Aleyda explained:

“I compared the text snippet provided by ChatGPT with Google’s search result for that specific page… and confirmed it was the same information.”

Not an Isolated Case

This isn’t a one-off event. Aleyda’s article also points to another case where a similar pattern occurred, ChatGPT used a snippet from Google Search when Bing hadn’t yet indexed the content.

Aleyda also documented what happened on a LinkedIn post where Kyle Atwater Morley shared his observation:

“So ChatGPT is basically piggybacking off Google snippets to generate answers?

What a wake-up call for anyone thinking traditional SEO is dead.”

Stéphane Bureau shared his opinion on what’s going on:

“If Bing’s results are insufficient, it appears to fall back to scraping Google SERP snippets.”

He elaborated on his post with more details later on in the discussion:

“Based on current evidence, here’s my refined theory:

When browsing is enabled, ChatGPT sends search requests via Bing first (as seen in DevTools logs).

However, if Bing’s results are insufficient or outdated, it appears to fall back to scraping Google SERP snippets, likely via an undocumented proxy or secondary API.

This explains why some replies contain verbatim Google snippets that never appear in Bing API responses.

I’ve seen multiple instances that align with this dual-source behavior.”

Why It Matters

This behavior implies that standard SEO practices, like optimising title tags and meta descriptions, still matter, even for AI-driven tools like ChatGPT Search. If Bing can’t access your content but Google can, ChatGPT may still find a way to surface it, through Google’s snippet.

As Aleyda notes, it would be helpful to check server logs to confirm whether ChatGPT attempted to access the page directly and what kind of HTTP response it received. That piece of the puzzle could clarify why it resorted to a search snippet in the first place.

Still, the broader takeaway is clear: optimising for Google is still critical in the age of AI search. Even ChatGPT might be leaning on it when all else fails.