How can I check whether AI recommends my business?
Open ChatGPT, ask the questions your customers would ask, and write down who gets named. Do it several times, because the list changes. Ten minutes gets you an honest picture of whether this is a problem worth spending money on.
What exactly should I type?
The question a customer would type, not the one you would. 'Best barbershop in Boise' rather than your business name. Searching your own name tells you the assistant knows you exist; it does not tell you whether you get recommended.
- The category question: 'best [trade] in [town]'.
- The specific-service question: 'where can I get [specific thing] in [town]'.
- The cost question: 'how much does [service] cost in [town]'.
- The choosing question: 'should I get [option A] or [option B]'.
How many times should I ask?
At least four or five per question, in fresh chats. You are looking for a pattern, not a verdict. Note who appears every time, who appears sometimes, and whether you appear at all.
Use a new conversation each time, and if the assistant offers personalisation or memory, be aware it may be tailoring to you. That is one of the reasons a proper scan runs from a clean, consistent setup.
What do the results mean?
Named most times: you are in good shape for that question. Named occasionally: you are on the edge, and small improvements move you. Never named while three competitors always are: that is the gap worth doing something about.
| What you see | What it means | What to look at first |
|---|---|---|
| You are never named; the same rivals always are | The sources being read do not describe you | Your directory profiles and whether your site is readable |
| You appear sometimes | You are present but not compelling for that question | Whether you have a page about that specific thing |
| Nobody is consistently named | The question is unsettled | The cheapest kind of question to win |
| The assistant gets your details wrong | Your information conflicts across sources | Name, address and phone consistency everywhere |
What can I fix myself in an afternoon?
Three things, none of which need a developer: claim and complete your directory profiles, make sure your address and phone appear as text on your site, and check that your robots.txt is not blocking the AI crawlers.
- Claim and fill in Google Business Profile, Yelp and Bing Places. Complete beats clever.
- Put your full address and phone in the footer as text -- not only inside a map embed, which a machine cannot read.
- Visit yoursite.com/robots.txt and look for anything disallowing GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended.
- Ask customers for reviews, steadily, and never offer anything in exchange -- that breaks platform rules and gets reviews removed.
Common questions
Why does the assistant name businesses that closed?
It is writing from sources, and stale directory entries persist. It is also a good illustration of why accurate listings matter.
Should I ask it about my competitors too?
Yes. Who gets named instead of you, and how consistently, is the most useful thing you will learn in ten minutes.
If this answered one question, these answer the next ones.
Why does AI name a different business every time you ask?
Because the answer is generated, not looked up. Ask the same question four times and you often get four overlapping but different lists. That variation is not a bug to be explained away -- it is the reason a single answer tells you almost nothing.
How does an AI assistant decide which businesses to name?
It searches, reads a handful of pages, and writes an answer from what those pages say. So the question is not 'how do I rank' but 'which pages does it read, and is my business on them'. Usually those pages are directories, reviews and round-ups rather than your own site.
What are the ways to get this done, and what does each cost?
Four realistic options: do it yourself, buy a monitoring tool, ask your existing SEO agency, or hire someone who does this specifically. They differ mainly in who does the work and whether anybody measures whether it helped.