Fillwell

troubleshooting guide

Why AI assistants never recommend your products.

Shoppers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini what to buy, and your store never comes up. There is no Search Console for AI, so you cannot look up the reason. But you can test for it: three checks, eight causes, and a fix for each. Fair warning: this guide is honest about what you cannot know.

Run the three testsScan my store for missing words →

Updated October 8, 2026 · 8 causes · about 6 minutes

start here

Three tests, because there is no dashboard.

AI search has no equivalent of Search Console. Diagnosis is manual: run these three tests and they point you to the right group below.

1

Ask the assistants

In a fresh chat, ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for products like yours, then ask: what do you know about yourstore.com? Vague or wrong answers point to causes 4 to 6.

2

Check the doors

Open yourstore.com/robots.txt and look for AI bots under Disallow. Then search Bing for site:yourstore.com. Problems here are causes 1 to 3.

3

Read your page like a machine

Open a product page and view source. Can you find a real description, filled details, alt text, and Product schema? Missing words are causes 4 to 6; missing everywhere else is causes 7 and 8.

ai cannot read you

The assistants cannot read your store

Start here. Every assistant builds its answers from what it can crawl and what sits in the search indexes it leans on. If your store is blocked or unindexed, nothing downstream matters.

Fillwell checks your robots.txt for four AI crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot) and tells you if any is blocked. It does not check GPTBot or Google-Extended. The fixes in this group are robots and indexing settings in your admin.

1

AI crawlers are blocked

How to tell

Open yourstore.com/robots.txt and look for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, or Google-Extended under a Disallow rule. Also check any bot-protection app or firewall rule that blocks unknown bots.

How to fix it

  1. Decide first: blocking AI crawlers is a legitimate choice. But if you want AI assistants to recommend your products, they have to be allowed in.
  2. Shopify's default robots.txt does not block these bots. If yours does, someone customized robots.txt.liquid or an app did. Edit or remove the rule.
  3. Check bot protection (Cloudflare and similar). AI crawlers are often swept up by block-all-bots rules.
2

Your store is not in Bing

How to tell

ChatGPT search and Copilot lean on Bing's index. Search Bing for site:yourstore.com. If little or nothing comes back, the assistants that use Bing barely know you exist.

How to fix it

  1. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools. It can import your site straight from Google Search Console in a few clicks.
  2. Submit your sitemap: yourstore.com/sitemap.xml.
  3. This is the closest thing AI search has to a diagnosis tool, so it is worth having even if Bing traffic itself is small for you.
3

You are not findable in regular search either

How to tell

The assistants read the same web Google does. If your products do not show in regular Google search, AI answers have the same blind spot, for the same reasons.

How to fix it

  1. Run the checks in the ranking guide: password page, noindex, indexing, titles, descriptions.
  2. Fix that first. Everything there feeds this page too.
The full ranking guide →

nothing to work with

AI can read the page, but the page says nothing

Assistants recommend products they can describe, compare, and defend. They work from your words: the description, the details, the titles, the alt text. A page that is a name, a photo, and a price gives the model nothing to match a request like waterproof hiking boots for wide feet.

This is Fillwell's group. All three causes are missing words. The free scan counts the descriptions and titles and samples the alt text. The scan in the app counts the details.

4

Thin descriptions and blank details

How to tell

Ask an assistant directly: what do you know about the products at yourstore.com? If the answer is vague or wrong, the pages do not say enough. A shopper asking for merino socks or a gift for a coffee snob is matched against your text, and thin text matches nothing.

How to fix it

  1. Write a real description for every product: what it is, what it is made of, who it is for, how it is used.
  2. Set the product category and fill its details: material, color, size, fit. Assistants use these to answer constraint questions like fits wide feet or machine washable.
  3. Say the concrete things a model can repeat: measurements, materials, care, country of origin. Vague copy gives it nothing to quote.
Fillwell fixes this

Fillwell finds every product with a missing description or blank details and writes them from the product's own text. You approve them in batches. Those words are what AI assistants match and quote.

See how it writes descriptions →
5

Generic titles and default SEO fields

How to tell

Products named Classic Tee or Mug 12oz, with the search title and summary left at Shopify's defaults. When an answer engine lists products, that title is usually the line it prints.

How to fix it

  1. Rewrite titles as brand, product type, and the details that matter: Acme Organic Cotton Crewneck T-Shirt, Navy.
  2. Fill the search title and meta description too. Answer engines that cite pages often show them.
Fillwell fixes this

Fillwell finds every product still on a default title or search summary and writes both from the product's own data. You approve them in batches.

See how it fixes default SEO →
6

Images with no alt text

How to tell

When an assistant fetches your page, images are usually reduced to their alt text. Blank alt means the model knows nothing about your photos. IMG_4021.jpg tells it nothing either.

How to fix it

  1. Write alt text that says what the photo shows: navy crewneck t-shirt, front view, model wearing size M.
  2. It also helps Google understand what the photo shows. It does not lift your page in regular rankings by much, so do it for the machines that read it, not for rank.
Fillwell fixes this

Fillwell finds every image with no alt text and writes it from the photo and the product. You approve them in batches.

See how it writes alt text →

readable but not chosen

AI can read you, but picks other stores

The honest part: once your pages are readable and well written, the rest is reputation and feeds, and there is no dashboard that tells you why an assistant picked a competitor. These two causes are what you can still influence.

Fillwell reports product pages with missing schema, a schema price that differs from the real price, and review stars missing from schema. You fix those in your theme or reviews app.

7

You are not in the shopping feeds AI surfaces draw from

How to tell

Assistants with shopping results (ChatGPT shopping, Perplexity's shopping answers, Google's AI Mode) lean on product feeds and the Shopping Graph, not just page crawls. If your Merchant Center is broken or empty, those surfaces have no card to show for you.

How to fix it

  1. Keep Google Merchant Center healthy. Google's AI shopping answers draw on the same product data. The Google Shopping guide covers every error.
  2. Check whether the assistants you care about run a merchant feed program, and submit yours where they do. These programs are new and change often, so check them directly rather than trusting a blog post.
  3. Keep price, availability, and product schema on your pages accurate. Feeds and crawls are cross-checked.
The Google Shopping guide →

Fillwell keeps the product data behind those feeds clean: categories, details, descriptions. The feed setup itself is Merchant Center and each assistant's program.

8

Nobody on the web talks about your products

How to tell

Ask an assistant for the best products in your niche and it cites review sites, Reddit threads, and roundup articles. If your store appears in none of them, the model has no outside reason to pick you, no matter how good your pages are.

How to fix it

  1. Collect reviews on your store and on the platforms assistants cite.
  2. Get into the roundups and comparisons that already rank for your niche. That is classic PR and outreach, and it moves AI answers because AI reads those pages.
  3. Publish the comparison content yourself: honest guides in your category earn citations from answer engines.

the words

Three of the eight are missing words. Fillwell writes those.

Robots, Bing, and feeds you set up once. Descriptions, details, titles, and alt text come back with every product, and they are the part of this page an assistant actually quotes.

1

The scan finds the gaps

Free. It counts products with no description, and samples default search titles and alt text. Blank details show in the scan in the app.

2

AI writes the words

From your own product text. Not sure? It skips.

3

You approve

Nothing changes until you say yes. Undo one row, a page, or all of it.

Missing descriptions

Fixes cause 4: the words assistants match and quote.

See it →

Default SEO

Fixes cause 5: the line an answer engine prints for you.

See it →

Missing alt text

Fixes cause 6: what a model knows about your photos.

See it →

quick check

Eight questions, in order.

The first no is where to start.

Scan my store free

The free scan answers four to six, except blank details, which only the scan in the app can see. For how the assistants get your products in the first place, read the AI search guide.

your store

  • Does robots.txt allow GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and ClaudeBot?
  • Does Bing show your store for site:yourstore.com?
  • Do your products rank in regular Google search?
  • Does every product have a real description and filled details?
  • Are titles specific, not Classic Tee?
  • Does every image have alt text?
  • Is Merchant Center healthy?
  • Does anyone outside your store mention your products?

good to know

Common questions

Is there a Search Console for AI assistants?

No. There is no dashboard that shows why ChatGPT or Perplexity did or did not recommend you. The closest tools are Bing Webmaster Tools for the index ChatGPT search leans on, Google Search Console for the web everyone reads, and asking the assistants directly in a fresh chat.

How do AI assistants pick products to recommend?

From what they can read: your product pages, the search indexes they use, shopping feeds like Merchant Center where they have access, and what the rest of the web says in reviews and roundups. They match a shopper's request against words, so pages with real descriptions and details win over thin ones.

Should I block AI crawlers or let them in?

It is a trade. Blocking keeps your content out of training and answers; allowing makes your products recommendable. For a store that wants AI-driven sales, blocking GPTBot and friends is usually shooting yourself in the foot. Just make the choice on purpose instead of inheriting it from a bot-protection default.

Does structured data matter for AI?

Yes. Shopify themes output Product schema with price and availability, and shopping surfaces cross-check it against feeds. Test a product URL in Google's Rich Results Test. A current theme usually passes; a heavily edited one can silently break it.

Is this the same as SEO?

Mostly. Assistants read the same web Google does, so everything in the ranking guide helps here too. The extra work on top is small: allow the AI crawlers, be in Bing, keep feeds healthy, and write pages with enough concrete detail that a model can describe your product.

Which of these does Fillwell fix?

The words: missing descriptions, blank details, default titles and search summaries, and missing alt text. Those are causes 4 to 6, and they are the part that recurs with every new product. Robots, Bing, feeds, and reputation are settings and outreach, covered in the steps above.

The crawler and tooling docs, if you want the source: OpenAI crawlers, Perplexity crawlers, Anthropic's crawler, Shopify robots.txt.liquid, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Rich Results Test.

you're in control

Approve each change, or bulk fill and undo anything.

AI can do this work. It shouldn't do it alone. Fillwell is built that way on purpose.

  • You guide it. Tell it what to do in plain words.
  • It skips when unsure. It never guesses into your live store.
  • You can undo anything. One row, one page, or all of it, for 30 days.

Your store. Your decision.

your instructions

Get the material from the @description.

explore fillwell

See everything Fillwell can do.

One free scan finds the gaps. Then Fillwell fills them, and you approve or undo. Start anywhere.

What it fixes

Six kinds of empty fields, found and filled.

See the fixes →

What it checks

Vendors, tags and titles: found across the catalog, fixed with your approval.

See the checks →

Bulk edits

Change many products at once, then review and undo any of them.

See bulk edits →

Give the assistants something to quote.

Scan free. See the missing words. Fix what AI reads.

Scan my store free

Free scan · public store only · no install needed.