How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product (Reddit)

Reddit's best-known answer is a 1,000-upvote r/SaaS post. A founder noticed ChatGPT was sending users and traced it to one honest comparison post on the founder's own site. That thread and the ones after it describe a simple method: write clear comparison pages for the questions buyers ask, then get your product onto the listicles, directories and Reddit threads that ChatGPT reads before it answers.

When we re-read the thread on 31 October 2026 it had 1,000 upvotes and 335 comments. Below is what it says, what later threads added, and a checklist. For the wider "is GEO just SEO?" debate, see SEO in the age of ChatGPT: lessons from Reddit.

The comparison-post story

The founder noticed a signup that came from ChatGPT. Someone had asked it for a free alternative to ScoreApp, and it named his tool. He traced the mention to a comparison post he had written, then wrote more comparison and use-case pages. By his account, ChatGPT was driving roughly half his signups three months later.

The thread is worth reading for the replies more than for the numbers, which are one founder's report. When people asked what made the post work, he said it had a comparison table and an FAQ, and that he tried to be honest about his own tool instead of one-sided. The post said plainly what his product was a free alternative to and why. He also said he started from his buyers' pain (ScoreApp's price), because that's what they would type into ChatGPT.

The reply people repeated most was about the query itself:

""Free alternative to X" is probably the highest-intent query pattern you can write for." (u/AccomplishedLow989 in r/SaaS)

Someone typing that query has already decided to switch. If a page names the product they're leaving, says who yours is for and explains why it costs less, ChatGPT has a direct answer it can repeat.

The same thread has two cautions. The posts were on the founder's own site, not on Medium. And several replies are pitches for AI-visibility tools, so give those less weight.

Why listicles get cited

Listicles get cited because buyers ask ChatGPT category questions ("best X for Y"), and a ranked list answers that question most directly. People tracking their AI answers in r/SaaS and r/SEO keep seeing "best of" roundups come up as sources. That's why getting onto existing lists matters as much as writing your own.

One reply in the r/SaaS thread said ChatGPT over-indexes on listicles and "best X for Y" pages. In an r/SEO thread on getting recommended by ChatGPT and Claude, a commenter sharing their own tracking said ranked lists usually come first for SaaS questions. Another listed editorially serious listicles among the sources that worked for them.

An outside view points the same way. On X, Alex Groberman summarised a study that found a brand's own site is usually cited when a buyer asks about the brand by name, and rarely when the buyer asks who's best in the category. On category questions, the citation goes to someone else's page.

Two warnings:

• Some "research" threads making this case are agency ads. One r/AIToolCompare post cites a study and then pitches its own agency to get you onto the lists.
• If you publish a list about yourself and put yourself at number one, Reddit calls that a fake listicle. Google's guidance also warns against chasing inauthentic mentions.

Getting onto other people's lists takes outreach. For Reddit's view of the services that sell it, see best link building services, according to Reddit.

Directories and entity signals

A directory's value here is less about the link and more about being one more independent page that says what your product is and which category it belongs to. Reddit commenters who check ChatGPT's sources often find a directory among them. Consistent listings in the right category look like the safest version of that signal, though nobody has measured how much it moves answers.

The most useful tip came from a 28 October 2026 r/Entrepreneur thread: run a prompt the way a customer would, then ask ChatGPT which sources it used.

"in most niches that's a handful: a directory, a roundup post, a forum thread. Your own site usually isn't one of them." (u/kemalios in r/Entrepreneur)

An r/content_marketing post describes the same thing from the other side. A site ranking first on Google got no ChatGPT mentions, while smaller rivals did. Those rivals showed up on forums, podcasts and industry directories.

Our own database shows what this looks like. Of 1,289 directories, 681 give a dofollow link. AI directories are the biggest group (308 listings, a little over half dofollow). Communities rarely give a dofollow link (16% of 210). Last checked: 31 October 2026, from how many directories give dofollow links. For AI answers, relevance matters more than count. A listing in your actual category is a page a model can match to a buyer's question.

Reddit's verdict on paid submission services is in best directory submission services, according to Reddit. If you'd rather not fill in the forms yourself, we submit to directories for you (we sell this; $99, $167 or $357 one-time, last checked 31 October 2026).

Reddit threads themselves

Reddit threads are a source too. ChatGPT reads Reddit discussions when it forms opinions about brands, so a real mention in a relevant thread can count for as much as a listicle. Reddit also bans self-promotion fast, which means this only works if you take part for real. Planted comments get removed.

One of the top replies in the r/SEO thread above named Reddit comments as the source that worked. On X, Suganthan Mohanadasan, co-founder of Keyword Insights, wrote that ChatGPT sometimes searches Reddit threads going back years, summarises them, and uses those summaries to form opinions about brands, even when it cites Reddit less often in the final answer.

What that means in practice:

• Answer questions in the subreddits your buyers use, under your own name, and say you built the product when you mention it.
• Don't seed fake recommendations. Moderators remove them, and a removed thread helps no one.
• Expect Reddit's share of AI citations to move. Our Reddit and AI search playbook covers how fast that has changed and what lasts.

A checklist

Here is what we'd take from these threads, in order. You can finish each step in a day or less, and the last one tells you whether the rest worked.

1. Check that AI crawlers can read your site. Look at your robots.txt and your CDN's bot settings. One r/Entrepreneur reply flagged Cloudflare blocking AI crawlers on some sites.
2. Write one honest comparison page for each alternative question. Lead with the answer ("[You] is a free alternative to [competitor] for [use case] because…"), add a table, and say where the competitor is better.
3. Write use-case pages for the exact questions buyers ask, in their words.
4. Find the pages ChatGPT cites for your category. Ask it and Perplexity your buyers' questions, then ask which sources they used. List every roundup, directory and thread that comes back.
5. Get onto those roundups by pitching the authors with a reason to include you.
6. List in the directories for your category, with the same name and description everywhere.
7. Join the Reddit threads where your buyers ask for recommendations, and do it openly.
8. Track 15 to 20 prompts every month, with several runs of each, and log who gets named and which URLs get cited.

Back to the wider picture: SEO in the age of ChatGPT: lessons from Reddit.