OpenAI search index serves small websites like licensed partners, data shows

Data from French SEO consultancy Resoneo indicates that OpenAI’s in-house search index, referred to as ‘labrador’, serves small websites similarly to those of its licensed partners. The findings suggest that having a content licensing agreement does not appear to change how sites are displayed within ChatGPT search results, with both licensed and non-licensed sites showing identical formats, lengths, and freshness.

In a study of 1,249 ChatGPT answers captured in July, Resoneo found that the in-house index handled most search results for free accounts. For paid accounts using the ‘reasoning mode’, Google scraping provided approximately 75% of the 16,407 search results analyzed, while the internal OpenAI index accounted for about 24%. The index appears to supplement news and open scientific archives, allowing OpenAI to access information directly without third-party fees.