I analyzed 50 real ChatGPT conversations by intercepting network traffic to uncover the patterns behind when and how ChatGPT searches the web.

Takeaways:

- ChatGPT has an internal understanding of when to lookup information using web search. It will lookup information from the internet only when unsure, or the user has explicitly asked it to lookup.

- Adding keywords like “lookup X” or “latest Y” or “Z near me” will force a web search lookup.

- Ranking boosters like “best”, “2025“, <current year>, “reviews” appear in ~30 % of ChatGPT’s generated web search queries.

- For very well established verticals (like “wordpress hosting”) ChatGPT provides an answer off the cuff from what it remembers.

- When generating web search queries, ChatGPT likes to:

    . add keywords “top”, “reviews”,

    . the user’s location and the current year

    . and authoritative sources (like “who“, “cdc” for medical queries)

Details here: https://acme.bot/blog/how-chatgpt-decides-when-to-search-the...