The test involved creating a new webpage that wasn’t yet indexed. When ChatGPT’s browsing tool was asked about it, the system couldn’t find the page. It returned a message saying the content might be outdated or unavailable. Google Gemini, on the other hand, accessed and summarized the page without issue.
The webpage was then submitted for indexing in both Google and Microsoft Bing. Google processed it successfully. Bing didn’t.
Hours later, the page appeared in Google’s results. It still wasn’t visible in Bing. Around the same time, ChatGPT began referencing a short portion of the page. When asked about the source, it responded that the snippet came from web search. The wording matched the exact snippet shown in Google’s result.
The page never appeared in Bing’s listings during this period. The match with Google’s content suggests ChatGPT may rely on Google’s preview data when Bing doesn’t return anything.
Other examples online point to the same pattern. In those cases, ChatGPT returned summaries that matched Google’s search preview instead of Bing’s. Some developers reviewing technical logs also noticed that ChatGPT sends requests through Bing by default, but may still end up using content that only appears on Google.
This behavior suggests fallback logic. If Bing doesn’t return usable results, ChatGPT appears to use visible Google search snippets to fill in missing details. There’s no official explanation of this process.
The test also highlights how traditional search indexing remains relevant for AI search tools. If a page isn’t available on Bing search, but is visible in Google, ChatGPT may still use the Google snippet. How exactly it accesses that content isn’t clear. It may involve cached pages or proxy connections that aren’t disclosed.
Whether or not ChatGPT tries to crawl the original page directly wasn’t confirmed in the test. Web server logs might reveal that information, but no access records were checked.
The outcome shows that Google’s search previews can affect what ChatGPT reports, especially when Bing isn’t up to date. This may continue to affect how information appears in AI-assisted tools until Bing improves its indexing.
Notes: This post was edited/created using GenAI tools. Image: DIW-Aigen.
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