Most advice on getting recommended by ChatGPT is a checklist with no data behind it. So we ran the test. On October 10, 2026 we asked ChatGPT seven plumber searches from 225 points across one metro area and logged every business it named and every link it cited: 1,575 answers and 38,164 source links.
One thing stood out. What ChatGPT reads depends on what the customer types.
How do you get ChatGPT to recommend your business?
Get listed on the sites ChatGPT reads, then give it a page worth quoting. In our scan, about 82% of the links ChatGPT cited for city-named plumber searches went to directories and list sites. For “emergency plumber”, about 58% went to plumbing companies’ own websites. Google Maps rank was a weak guide to who got named.
How the scan worked
We used Local Falcon’s ChatGPT scan for a plumbing client of ours. The client, its city and its competitors are anonymized here. The tool lays a grid over a service area, asks ChatGPT the same question from every point, and records which businesses each answer names and which pages it links to. Local Falcon documents the method here.
| Setting | What we ran |
|---|---|
| Platform | ChatGPT, scanned with Local Falcon |
| Grid | 15 by 15, so 225 points, covering 10 miles around the client’s office |
| Searches | Seven: three that name the city and four that do not |
| Answers collected | 1,575 |
| Source links logged | 38,164, pointing to 767 websites |
| Date | October 10, 2026 |
| Site types | The 90 most-cited websites, which hold 86.8% of all links, sorted by hand |
Two terms. Share of AI voice is the share of answers naming any business that named this one. A directory or list site is any site that lists or routes to more than one business: Angi, Expertise.com, a “best plumbers” page, a lead-generation site. We sorted the 90 most-cited sites into 43 directories and lists, 43 plumbing companies’ own sites and 4 others. The remaining 13.2% of links went to sites we did not sort, so the true share for each type is a little higher than the figures below. Of the 1,575 answers, 1,509 named one or more businesses, and every “named in” percentage uses that base.
One caution on the counts. The tool logs most links twice, once with ChatGPT’s tracking tag and once without, and the same page is cited from many grid points. The 38,164 link records point to about 2,600 distinct pages. Read the totals as records and trust the shares. We scanned ChatGPT only. Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews read different sources, and these numbers should not be assumed to carry over.
City searches: ChatGPT read the lists
When the search named the city, ChatGPT built its answer from directories and “best of” lists. Across the three city searches, 82.2% of 16,319 source links went to directories and list sites, and nine of the ten most-cited websites were directories. Plumbing companies’ own websites supplied 14.1%.
| Most-cited website | Type | Links | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expertise.com | Curated list | 2,172 | 13.3% |
| Angi | Directory | 2,114 | 13.0% |
| BestProsInTown | Review aggregator | 1,247 | 7.6% |
| A city “top rated” directory | Local directory | 928 | 5.7% |
| ProLP | Marketplace | 922 | 5.6% |
| HomeAdvisor | Directory | 907 | 5.6% |
| ChamberofCommerce.com | National directory | 779 | 4.8% |
| Yably | Review platform | 778 | 4.8% |
| ThreeBestRated | Curated list | 707 | 4.3% |
| A national franchise’s own website | Business website | 610 | 3.7% |
| Ten websites | 11,164 | 68.4% |
The client’s own website supplied 403 of those links, or 2.5%. Yelp supplied 247, or 1.5%.
Where the client stood on those lists
We opened four of the cited list pages on the day of the scan: Expertise.com, ThreeBestRated, ProLP and the city “top rated” directory. The client was in the first four entries on each, and it was the only business listed on all four. ChatGPT named it in 76.9% to 82.1% of answers across the three city searches, first among the 71 to 74 businesses named.
That is a pattern and not proof. Two of those four pages sort by review count or rating, so position there partly reflects reviews. And the next three businesses ChatGPT named most were on neither of the two curated lists. List position is part of the story, not all of it.
The mix was specific to this trade and this city: two curated lists, a marketplace, and a directory that only covers this city. A standard citation package is unlikely to include all of them. Run the scan first, then build the list. Our local link building work starts from that source report.
Emergency searches: ChatGPT read plumbers’ own websites
Drop the city name and the mix shifts toward plumbers’ own websites. On one search they took over. For “emergency plumber”, 57.9% of source links went to plumbing companies’ own websites and 12.5% went to directories. On the other three searches without a city, directories still led. No national directory made the ten most-cited websites. Angi supplied 12% to 16% of links on the other six searches. On this one it supplied 10 links out of 5,341.
| Search | Websites cited | Directories and lists | Plumbers’ own sites | Businesses named | Client’s share of AI voice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| “plumber [city]” | 151 | 83.1% | 13.5% | 73 | 79.1% (1st) |
| “plumber [city nickname]” | 148 | 81.9% | 14.4% | 71 | 82.1% (1st) |
| “[city nickname] plumber” | 145 | 81.5% | 14.5% | 74 | 76.9% (1st) |
| “plumber near me” | 319 | 62.4% | 21.0% | 152 | 13.7% (2nd, tied) |
| “plumber” | 290 | 53.1% | 27.5% | 128 | 19.0% (2nd) |
| “drain cleaning” | 365 | 40.7% | 33.9% | 130 | 11.1% (3rd) |
| “emergency plumber” | 285 | 12.5% | 57.9% | 95 | 37.1% (2nd) |
On the emergency search, the two most-cited websites belonged to the two businesses ChatGPT named most. A national franchise’s site drew 627 links, and the franchise was named in 68.8% of the answers that named any business. The client’s site drew 544 links, 10.2% of the total, and the client was named in 37.1%.
ChatGPT also cited the page that matched the search. For “emergency plumber”, the client’s most-cited page was its emergency plumbing page (156 links), ahead of its city page (117) and its homepage (107). For “drain cleaning”, 49 of the client’s 72 links went to its drain cleaning page. Across all seven searches ChatGPT cited 25 different pages on the client’s site, 1,348 links in all. That made it the sixth most-cited website in the whole scan.
This is the part a business controls. A plumber cannot write its own Expertise.com entry, but it can publish an emergency page that answers the question in the first sentence. It is the same standard we build to on our plumber SEO and home services SEO accounts.
Google Maps rank was a weak guide to who ChatGPT named
We ran Google Maps scans on the same grid on the same day for three of the searches. Here are the client and two competitors side by side. A strong map position and a strong ChatGPT showing did not reliably go together.
| Search | Business | Google Maps: top-three share | ChatGPT: share of AI voice |
|---|---|---|---|
| “[city nickname] plumber” | The client | 42.2% (3rd) | 76.9% (1st) |
| “[city nickname] plumber” | Local rival | 43.6% (2nd) | 8.0% |
| “plumber” | The client | 13.8% (5th) | 19.0% (2nd) |
| “plumber” | The same local rival | 44.4% (1st) | 5.9% |
| “emergency plumber” | The client | 38.7% (1st) | 37.1% (2nd) |
| “emergency plumber” | National franchise | 10.7% (7th) | 68.8% (1st) |
Top-three share is the share of grid points where the business ranked in the first three map results. The franchise has several branches, so its map share is for its best-ranking branch while ChatGPT counts the brand. Review counts did not settle it either. Three of these businesses each had between 2,100 and 2,700 Google reviews at 4.8 or 4.9 stars. For the same city search, ChatGPT named them in 76.9%, 10.2% and 8.0% of answers. The two named least were each on three of the four list pages we opened and absent from Expertise.com, the most-cited one.
None of this makes the map pack less important. It is still where the calls come from, and we cover it in how to rank in the Google Maps top 3. It is a separate contest with a separate scoreboard.
What ChatGPT barely cited
- Yelp: 350 of 38,164 links, or 0.9%. Yelp said in July 2026 that it licenses its reviews to OpenAI (Search Engine Land). Licensed data can shape an answer without appearing as a link, and this scan only counts links.
- Reddit: 24 links, or 0.06%. Nextdoor had 10, YouTube 9 and Facebook 2.
General guides often send local businesses to Reddit threads and social profiles. For plumber searches in this metro, those were close to zero. One trace of Google did show up: 107 link records carried the tracking tags businesses put on the website link in a Google Business Profile. OpenAI names no single local data source. Its help center says ChatGPT search partners with other search providers and may share a user’s location with third-party providers for local results. Whatever you call the work (GEO, AEO or generative engine optimization), the source list has to come from your own market.
What this scan does not prove
- It is one trade in one metro on one day. ChatGPT’s answers change between runs, so these shares will move.
- There is no “before”. We have managed this client’s Google Business Profiles since late 2025 and rebuilt more than 40 of its service and city pages between June and August 2026. We did not scan ChatGPT first, so we cannot say how much of this result our work produced. The reviews and the reputation are the client’s own.
- The sorting is by hand. Sites outside the 90 we classified hold 13.2% of links, and we sorted each site by what it presents itself as. A few sites that look like one plumbing company may be lead-generation fronts.
- The client did not appear in Google AI Overviews. We scanned four of the same searches there on the same day, and it was not found at any of the 225 points.
- The traffic is still small. Google Analytics 4 has recorded 39 visits from ChatGPT to the client’s site through October 9, 2026, the first of them in the week of July 6. Visits that arrive without a referrer are not counted, so that is a floor. Call tracking has not yet attributed a call to ChatGPT on this account.
Across our client accounts in the third quarter of 2026, AI assistants produced 1.4% of tracked calls and Google produced 70.5%. The full numbers are in our AI search statistics. If your phone is quiet, fix your Google Business Profile and the map pack first. This work sits on top of that.
The order we work in
Here is how we now run this for a local service business, in order.
- Scan before you touch anything. Run ChatGPT scans for your service with and without the city name, plus two written as questions, such as “who is the best plumber in [city]”. This client has no baseline. Yours should.
- Read the source report. Rank the cited websites by count. For city searches here, ten sites supplied 68.4% of links, and nine of them were directories. Those nine are the target list.
- Get listed and complete on each one. Claim the directory profiles and apply to the curated lists. Use the same name, address and phone number on every one (NAP consistency), so ChatGPT can resolve every listing to one business entity. Curated lists choose their own entries, so nobody can promise you a place.
- Build one page per service. Emergency, drain cleaning, water heaters. Put the answer in the first sentence, add FAQs, mark the page up with LocalBusiness, Service and FAQPage schema, and name a licensed author.
- Keep reviews coming, and do not rely on them alone. The list pages we opened print a rating or review score beside almost every name. Three businesses here with similar review counts got very different results.
- Win the city searches first. ChatGPT named 71 to 74 businesses on the city searches and 95 to 152 on the ones with no city. “Near me” is spread thin.
- Submit to Bing, then re-scan monthly. OpenAI names Bing in its enterprise documentation, so we send new pages to Bing through IndexNow the day they publish. Then we repeat the scan on identical settings and track share of AI voice next to ChatGPT visits in Google Analytics 4.
What it costs
We do not sell this as a separate product. AI search work is built into our local SEO plans: $800 a month for one managed Google Business Profile, or $2,000 a month for Multi-Local Plus, which covers up to three profiles plus unlimited location pages. Each additional profile is $800 a month. If you want only the AI side, see our ChatGPT SEO services and AI SEO services.
Questions we get about ChatGPT recommendations
How does ChatGPT choose which local businesses to recommend?
ChatGPT searches the web when someone asks for a local business, reads the pages it finds, and tends to name the businesses those pages list. In our October 2026 scan of plumber searches, about 82% of the links it cited for city-named searches went to directories and list sites. For the search “emergency plumber”, about 58% went to plumbing companies’ own websites.
Does ChatGPT use Google Maps or Bing to find local businesses?
OpenAI does not name a single source. Its help center says ChatGPT search works with third-party search providers and may share a user’s location with them for local results such as business listings. Bing is named in OpenAI’s enterprise documentation, and Yelp said in July 2026 that it licenses its reviews to OpenAI. In our scan, a business’s Google Maps rank was a weak guide to how often ChatGPT named it.
Can you pay ChatGPT to recommend your business?
No. OpenAI sells ads on its Free and Go plans, but its help center says ads appear below the answer, are labeled as sponsored, and do not change what ChatGPT says. The businesses named inside an answer come from the sources ChatGPT reads, so the work is getting onto those sources.
Do Google reviews decide who ChatGPT recommends?
Not on their own. In our scan, three plumbing companies each had between 2,100 and 2,700 Google reviews at 4.8 or 4.9 stars. For one city-named search, ChatGPT named them in 76.9%, 10.2% and 8.0% of answers. The one named most was the only business listed on all four of the cited list pages we opened.
How do I check whether ChatGPT recommends my business?
Ask it the way a customer would, from a few places in your service area, and note which businesses and links come back. A grid scan does the same thing from dozens of points and counts how often you are named. In Google Analytics 4, visits from ChatGPT show chatgpt.com as the source.
Does getting recommended by ChatGPT replace local SEO?
No. Across our client accounts in the third quarter of 2026, AI assistants produced 1.4% of tracked calls and Google produced 70.5%. ChatGPT also cited the same directories, reviews and service pages that local SEO already builds, so this is added work on the same foundation.
See what ChatGPT reads in your city
Ask for a free audit and tell us your trade and service area. We will show you which sites ChatGPT cites there and where you are missing.
📞 Or call us directly: (888) 863-7421 | 6815 E Camelback Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Sources and method. Local Falcon ChatGPT, Google Maps and Google AI Overview scans for one anonymized plumbing client, 15 by 15 grid, 10-mile radius, October 10, 2026. Google Analytics 4 AI referral report for the same client, November 29, 2025 to October 9, 2026. CallRail call sources across Lifted Websites client accounts, July 1 to September 30, 2026. List pages opened October 10, 2026. OpenAI Help Center articles on ChatGPT search and ads in ChatGPT, read October 10, 2026.
