Key Takeaways
- Ask which door a review site uses before chasing reviews on it. Reviews reach an AI answer either because the assistant is allowed to crawl the site, or because the site licenses its content to that assistant. Some sites use one door, some the other.
- Do not assume Yelp is readable by every assistant. Yelp's robots.txt, read on September 13, 2026, shuts GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended out of everything but its articles. Its reviews reach ChatGPT through a content deal instead.
- Treat an open robots.txt as permission, not a promise. Trustpilot and G2 leave their review pages open to the named AI crawlers. That means an assistant can read them, not that it will use them for your question.
- Remember Google reviews travel on their own route. They sit in Google Maps data, which Gemini draws on directly. That route has nothing to do with what any other site allows.
- Keep your best review text on a page you own as well. Partnerships end and robots.txt files change. A testimonials page on your own site is the one source whose door you control.
Most advice about reviews and AI treats review sites as one thing. Get more reviews, somewhere public, and assistants will notice.
The sites themselves have made very different choices. Some shut AI crawlers out completely and sell their reviews to one assistant instead. Others leave their pages open to all of them.
Here is how review sites feed AI recommendations, what three of them allowed when we read their files this morning, and what that changes about where a coach or consultant should send happy clients.
Do review sites feed AI recommendations?
Yes, but only through one of two doors. Either the review site lets an assistant's crawler read its pages, or it licenses its content to that assistant. A site can shut the first door and open the second, and Yelp does exactly that.
So the useful question is never "does AI read review sites". It is which door a particular site uses, for which assistant. The answer changes more often than the advice does, which is why every fact below carries the date it was read.
What an assistant takes from a review once it can read one, and why specific detail survives while star ratings mostly do not, is covered in whether AI assistants read reviews. This post is about the step before that: whether the review can reach the assistant at all.
The two doors a review can go through
The crawl door is a site's robots.txt file, which tells each named crawler what it may read. The deal door is a content partnership, where the site hands its data to a specific assistant directly. Either one is enough to put a review in front of that assistant.
The crawl door is documented by the AI companies themselves. OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, and that its settings for search and for training are independent. Perplexity's crawler documentation says PerplexityBot is what surfaces sites in its search results, and adds a detail worth knowing: its user-requested fetcher, Perplexity-User, generally ignores robots.txt because a person asked for the page.
The deal door is documented, when it is documented at all, by the review site. Nobody is obliged to announce one, so a site with no published partnership may still have a private arrangement. Absence of an announcement is not proof of absence.
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Yelp
Crawl door Shut to named AI crawlers
Deal door Content deal with ChatGPT
ChatGPT, through the deal
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Trustpilot
Crawl door Open on company review pages
Deal door None found
Assistants that crawl it
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G2
Crawl door Open on review pages
Deal door None found
Assistants that crawl it
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Google reviews
Crawl door Not a crawl question
Deal door Google Maps data
Gemini, through Maps
What Yelp, Trustpilot and G2 allow today
As read on September 13, 2026: Yelp shuts every named AI crawler out of its business pages and feeds ChatGPT through a partnership, while Trustpilot and G2 leave their review pages open to the named AI crawlers. These files can change on any day, so check the date before repeating it.
Yelp. Yelp's robots.txt disallows GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and several others from the whole site. It lets OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User and PerplexityBot read its article pages and nothing else, and it closes with a rule disallowing every crawler it did not name. Meanwhile Yelp's own announcement of reservations and waitlists inside ChatGPT, dated August 10, 2026, describes an existing content integration that surfaces Yelp reviews, ratings, photos and business details in ChatGPT. The same post names Apple Maps, Alexa+, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo among the platforms delivering Yelp-powered recommendations. So Yelp reviews reach ChatGPT through the deal door while the crawl door stays shut.
Trustpilot. Its robots.txt gives GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User and Google-Extended their own rules, and those rules exclude search results, account pages and filtered views of reviews, but not the company review pages themselves. It disallows the older anthropic-ai crawler entirely, and blocks any crawler it does not name. We found no published content partnership with an AI assistant.
G2. Its robots.txt groups GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, Amazonbot and others under rules that exclude filtered review views, PDF exports and tracking links, and leave the review pages readable. G2 is mostly software reviews, which matters for a consultant selling a tool-adjacent service and hardly at all for a coach.
Google reviews. These are not a crawl question at all. They live in Google Maps data, and Gemini draws public information from Google Maps directly. How that route opens and when it stays shut is covered in how Gemini uses your Google Business Profile.
| Where the review lives | Crawl door for named AI crawlers | Deal door | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yelp | Shut, except Yelp's article pages | Content integration with ChatGPT, announced by Yelp | Reviews can reach ChatGPT through the deal, and mostly not other assistants |
| Trustpilot | Open on company review pages | None published that we found | Readable by any assistant whose crawler it names |
| G2 | Open on review pages | None published that we found | Readable, but relevant mainly to software and tool buyers |
| Google reviews | Not applicable, they sit in Google's own Maps data | Google Maps data used by Gemini | Gemini can read them directly for questions that name a place |
| A testimonials page on your own site | Whatever your own robots.txt says | Not needed | The only source whose door you control |
What this means for a coach or consultant
It means the review platform worth your effort is the one your buyers already use, and then only if its door is open to the assistants your buyers ask. A pile of reviews on a site no assistant can reach is a private compliment.
For most coaches, that platform is Google, because Google reviews reach Gemini directly and show up wherever people look you up. For consultants, it may be an industry directory or a review site in your field, and it is worth opening that site's robots.txt file yourself before sending a single client there. It takes two minutes: add /robots.txt to the site's address and search the page for GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
Yelp is the case that breaks the simple rule. A coaching business with a Yelp page is readable by ChatGPT through the partnership and closed to crawling by the others. But Yelp's partnership centers on local businesses of the kind people book, and a coaching page with three reviews is unlikely to be the Yelp content ChatGPT reaches for.
None of this replaces having the reviews say something. An open door lets an assistant read "great coach, highly recommend", and there is nothing in that sentence to repeat.
What to do about it
Pick one review platform your buyers use, check its robots.txt, ask clients for reviews with specific detail in them, and keep a copy of the best ones as text on your own site.
Pick one. Spreading clients across five platforms leaves each profile thin. One well-populated profile on a platform people actually check does more than five sparse ones.
Check the door. Read the site's robots.txt for the named AI crawlers, and search its blog or press page for any announced partnership with an assistant. Note the date you checked.
Ask for detail. A review that names the starting point, what changed and how long it took is the kind of sentence an assistant can use. How to ask for that without leading the client is in the post on reviews linked above, and the pages worth being mentioned on beyond review sites are in how to get mentioned on sites AI already trusts.
Keep a copy you own. With permission, publish the best reviews as plain text on a page of your own site, attributed and dated. That page does not depend on anyone else's crawler rules or contracts.
Here is the damaging admission. You cannot tell, from an answer that names you, which door the information came through, and neither can we from outside. A review site that feeds an assistant today can end its partnership or change its file tomorrow, and nothing on your side will show it. That is the strongest argument for the page you own, and it is also why no single review platform deserves more than a small share of your week.
To see what gets said about your niche today, start with the free check. It asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions from your niche at $0 and emails a plain-English readout: your score, who got named in your place, and the one fix to start with. It runs as soon as you ask for it, and the report lands within the hour between 7am and 5pm Central, or by 10am the next morning outside those hours.
Questions we hear the most
Do review sites feed AI recommendations?
Some do, by two different routes. A review site feeds an assistant either by letting its crawler read the pages, or by licensing its content to that assistant directly. Which route is open varies by site and by assistant.
Does ChatGPT use Yelp reviews?
Yes, through a partnership rather than crawling. Yelp says its content integration surfaces Yelp reviews, ratings, photos and business details inside ChatGPT, while its robots.txt shuts OpenAI's crawlers out of its business pages.
Can Claude or Perplexity read my Yelp page?
Not by crawling, according to Yelp's robots.txt as read on September 13, 2026, which disallows ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot from everything except its articles. We found no published content partnership with either.
Are Trustpilot reviews visible to AI assistants?
Trustpilot's robots.txt, read on September 13, 2026, lets GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and OAI-SearchBot read company review pages while excluding search results, account pages and filtered views. Readable does not mean used.
Does Gemini use my Google reviews?
It can. Google's documentation says its Maps grounding returns reviews along with places, photos, addresses and hours, and Gemini draws public information from Google Maps.
Should a coach start collecting reviews on Yelp?
Only if your buyers already look there. Most coaching buyers do not, and a thin Yelp page with three reviews is not going to be quoted. Put your effort into the one review platform your buyers actually use.
How do I find out which sites AI cites when it answers about my niche?
Ask your buyers' questions in an assistant that shows sources and write down every domain. The AnswerHalo free check asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions at $0 and emails a plain-English readout within the hour.
Does the AnswerHalo audit show which review sites are being used?
It shows the pages the answers actually drew on, review sites included, ranked by how often, across five AI tools. It lands in your inbox by this time tomorrow.
Your buyers are already asking. Find out what AI tells them.
The free check asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions about your niche and sends you the report within the hour, at $0. If it shows you are already getting named everywhere, we will say so in plain words.
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