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How does ChatGPT decide which local business to recommend?

ChatGPT names businesses from what it finds when it searches the web. The names can change with the question, the town and each new chat. Pages that answer the customer’s exact question are a sensible place to start.

What happens when a customer asks

  1. The customer types a question, such as “My roof is leaking. Who do I call near me? I’m in Phoenix, AZ.”
  2. ChatGPT can write its own web searches. In our test runs, the answers stored the searches the assistant wrote and the pages it read.
  3. OpenAI says OAI-SearchBot is the crawler that surfaces websites in ChatGPT’s search features. It says sites that opt out in robots.txt are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
  4. ChatGPT writes an answer that names businesses, often with links to the pages it used.

What we saw in our tests

  • In our tests, one business was named in almost every answer to one question and in none to another. So the exact question matters. A general question, a storm question and a price question can name different businesses.
  • The town matters. Put your town in the question. In our early tests, Gemini and Claude asked which city when the question had none.
  • Each time you ask, you can get different businesses. A few businesses came up every time in our tests, and the rest rotated. In Houston, 90 AI answers to the questions homeowners ask a plumber named 100+ different plumbing businesses (October 2026). So the names spread across many businesses, not only the few that came up every time. Ask three times and read the pattern.
  • Pages that answer the question may be a factor. We ran a small early study of businesses that assistants had already named. Every business whose site had a findable page answering a specific urgent question was named for that question. Many were named without one. It is an association in a small sample.

What OpenAI publishes

We have not found a statement from OpenAI on how ChatGPT ranks local businesses, and we have not tested every factor. Treat any page that gives you an exact formula as a guess.

What to do

  • Ask whoever manages your website to check that robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI says a change can take about 24 hours to be picked up.
  • Write the answer to a specific customer question in plain text on your own site. A roofer can cover what happens after a storm. A dentist can cover who sees a chipped tooth today.
  • Keep your name, address, phone number and services the same on your site and your listings.
  • Ask ChatGPT the question a customer would ask, three times in new chats, and write down who is named.

What a report adds

We found no published formula, so the useful thing to know is who gets named. A report shows you whether that is you. It counts how many of 180 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude named you, and who was named instead. It also shows what to fix first to win more of the leads AI sends.

One report is $97, and it includes a free re-check 30 days later, so you see what changed.

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More questions owners ask

Should I put my town in the question?

Yes. In our early tests, Gemini and Claude asked which city when the question had none. A line such as “I’m in Dallas, TX.” gets you a local answer.

Does ChatGPT pick the same business every time?

No. Each time you ask, you can get different businesses, so we ask three times. Some businesses came up in nearly every answer in our tests.

How long does a change to my website take to show up?

OpenAI says a robots.txt change can take about 24 hours to reach its search systems. Changes to the text on your pages may take longer, so check again in a few weeks.

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