How ChatGPT decides which local businesses to recommend

When you ask ChatGPT for a local recommendation, it searches the web and builds its list from what it finds: business websites, map listings and roundup articles. In our scans, every business it named came with a link to its website or a Google Maps search. The details it printed (category, star rating, review count, address) matched the business's Google listing word for word.

Here's what that looked like in practice, and what I'd change if I were the business on the end of it.

What we tested

The business in these scans is SEOBurf, my own consultancy. I picked it because I can check both sides: what the AI said, and what's true.

WhereInAI asked 3 questions a buyer might type on 7 scans between 21 and 30 September 2026. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini got each question 3 times per scan. Google AI Overviews gives the same answer each time, so it was checked once. The questions:

• Who is the best SEO consultant in Bath
• What SEO consultants are there in Bath?
• SEO experts in Bath

These are the answers we could read (a few calls failed or came back without business names, and those are left out):

So the first thing the data says is blunt. Being recommended by ChatGPT tells you nothing about the other three.

What ChatGPT did

It named SEOBurf in 45 of 63 answers, at an average position of 2.4 in the list.

Every business it named had a link. In the earlier scans that link was a Google Maps search for the business name and town, like google.com/maps/search/SEOBurf, Bath, UK. By 30 September it had switched to linking SEOBurf's own website, which it cited 38 times across the period.

In 37 answers, SEOBurf's entry carried a small business card:

Open now · Marketing agency · 5.0 (4 reviews)
Byfields, Wells Rd, Radstock BA3 3US, United Kingdom

That's the Google Business Profile, line for line. Same category, same rating, same review count, same address. "Open now" means it also had the opening hours.

What that tells you, and what it doesn't

Measured: the card ChatGPT printed matches the Google listing exactly, and ChatGPT linked to Google Maps for the businesses it named.

Inferred: ChatGPT's local results draw on Google's business data, directly or through a provider that mirrors it. OpenAI hasn't said where the data comes from. What would disprove the inference is another public source showing the same 5.0 from 4 reviews and the same hours. I haven't found one, and a review count that small is very specific to one platform.

I've covered the Google listing in more depth in Does your Google Business Profile affect ChatGPT?.

One more detail worth a look. Every question asked about Bath, and ChatGPT printed a Radstock address without blinking. It used the website and listing together to decide SEOBurf serves Bath. If you cover several towns, say so in plain words on your site.

What I'd do if ChatGPT ignores you

Most of this is inference from one business, so read it as a sensible order of work, with no promises attached.

1. Get the Google listing right. Correct category, real opening hours, an address that matches your website, and a link to your site. Ask happy customers for reviews. A card showing 5.0 from 4 reviews still got printed; a card with nothing on it has nothing to print.
2. Make your website say plainly what you do and where. ChatGPT's descriptions of SEOBurf repeated specific claims (25 years, technical audits, local SEO). Write the sentence you'd want quoted, near the top of the page.
3. Let it read the site. ChatGPT search uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot. If your robots.txt or firewall blocks it, you're asking to be left out. OpenAI's crawler page explains the settings.
4. Be on the pages the other assistants read. Claude and Gemini leaned on roundup articles and directories far more than ChatGPT did. Why AI recommends your competitors and not you goes through exactly which pages.

For the directory side, TownDirectory gives you a free UK listing, and CitationHQ will submit you to the main UK directories for you if you'd rather not spend an afternoon on it. Both are run by the same company as WhereInAI.

The limits of this

One business, one town, one trade, 10 days. ChatGPT changes how it answers without notice, as the switch from map links to website links mid-period shows. I'll update this guide as the scans keep running, and I'll say what changed.

If you want to see your own version of the table above, run a free scan. It asks the same kind of questions about your business and shows who each assistant names instead.