Home › Guides › How Do You Check if ChatGPT and Google AI Recommend Your Contractor Business?
How Do You Check if ChatGPT and Google AI Recommend Your Contractor Business?
Short answer: To check if ChatGPT and Google AI recommend your contracting business, ask both the 10 questions a homeowner would type, such as "best roofer in [your town]", while logged out. Note whether you are named and who is named instead. Your score is how many questions name you. Repeat monthly, because the two tools often disagree.
- Zarla's 2026 study of 1,851 listings found ChatGPT named 35.6% and Google's AI Mode named 18.4%.
- Only 9.8% of those listings were named by both tools, so test each one separately.
- Test logged out in a private window, because signed-in chats can lean on your own history.
- Ask each question twice in a new chat, since AI answers are written fresh and can differ.
- Named businesses in the Zarla study had a median of 444 Google reviews against 192 for the rest.
- Check once a month and compare over about four months before deciding a fix worked.
You do not need a paid tool for this. You need a notebook, 30 minutes and an honest eye.
Why test both ChatGPT and Google?
Because they pick different businesses. An August 2026 study by Zarla looked at 1,851 local business listings across 10 trades and 10 US cities. ChatGPT named 35.6% of them. Google's AI Mode named 18.4%. Only 9.8% were named by both (Zarla: AI Visibility Index (2026)).
That sample was the top 20 Google results for each trade and city, so it makes the odds look better than they are for the average small contractor. Zarla says the same. Still, the gap between the two tools is the point. If you only test ChatGPT, you can miss a problem in Google, and the other way round.
People do ask. A 2026 BrightLocal headline says nearly half of consumers are asking AI for business recommendations (BrightLocal: Nearly Half of Consumers are Asking AI for Business Recommendations (2026)). A Scorpion report of 2,000 homeowners found 22% use AI tools such as ChatGPT for research or recommendations, and 83% start online (ACHR News on Scorpion's 2026 report). Those are different surveys with different question wording, so do not add them up. Read them as: a real share of your customers now ask a chatbot first.
What does "recommend" mean here?
A recommendation is any time an AI answer names your business, links to your site, or lists you as an option for a question a buyer would ask. It is not the same as ranking on Google. A business can sit in the map results and still be missing from the AI answer. In Zarla's data, businesses that showed up in Google's top 20 were still left out of most AI answers.
There are three levels, and it helps to score them separately:
| Level | What you see | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Named | Your business name appears in the answer | The tool knows you and picked you |
| Cited | Your website is listed as a source | The tool read your page and used it |
| Absent | Neither | The tool did not find a reason to use you |
Being cited without being named happens. The answer may use your page for a fact, such as a service area, and then recommend someone else. That still tells you your site is readable.
How do you check if ChatGPT recommends your business, step by step?
Use this process once to get a starting score. Then repeat it each month.
Step 1: Write your 10 buyer questions
Write the questions a homeowner types when they need you. Mix three kinds:
- Find someone: "best roofer in Boise Idaho" (an example town), "emergency plumber near me", "who installs EV chargers in Plano".
- Compare or check: "how do I know if a roofing company is legit", "is [your business name] any good".
- Price and process: "how much does a new concrete driveway cost in Tampa", "do I need a permit to replace a water heater".
Use your real towns. Put your own business name in at least two of them. If you serve 3 towns, test the biggest one and one smaller one.
Skip the clever questions. Pull them from your own phone calls. What do people say in the first minute? Those are your questions.
Step 2: Ask ChatGPT, logged out
Open a private browser window. Do not sign in. Signed-in chats remember you, and the answers can lean toward your own history. Paste question one and read the whole answer.
Note three things per question:
- Is your business named? Yes or no.
- Which businesses are named instead?
- Which websites are listed as sources?
If the answer asks for your location, give the town in the question itself, as in step 1.
Step 3: Ask Google, and read the AI part separately
Search the same 10 questions in a fresh private window. Google may show an AI Overview at the top, and it has a separate AI Mode tab. Record them apart from the normal results.
This matters because "I rank on page one" is not the same as "the AI answer names me". Keep two columns in your notebook: in the AI box and in the normal results. Only the first counts as an AI recommendation.
Google also shows the map pack for local searches. Write down if you are in it. The map pack runs off your Google Business Profile, and Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, and that prominence is based partly on how many reviews you have and your ratings (Google Business Profile Help: Improve your local ranking).
Step 4: Ask each question twice
Ask again after a few minutes, in a new chat. AI answers are written fresh each time, so one run can miss you and the next can name you. If you appear in one of two runs, count it as a half.
This is first-hand advice, not a study result. It costs you ten extra minutes and it stops you from reading too much into one answer.
Step 5: Score it
Fill in one row per question:
| Question | ChatGPT named you? | Google AI named you? | Who was named instead | Sources listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||
| 2 |
Your score is the number of questions with a yes, out of 10, for each tool. A score of 0 out of 10 is a normal place to start for a small contractor. It is not a verdict on your business. It means the tools do not yet have enough on you to pick you.
Step 6: Look at who is winning
Open the businesses and sources that showed up. You are looking for a pattern:
- Are the winners mostly businesses with far more Google reviews than you?
- Are the sources lists like "10 best roofers in Boise", Yelp pages, or directories?
- Does a winner have a page that answers the exact question, and do you not?
In the Zarla study, businesses that were named had a median of 444 Google reviews. The ones that were not named had a median of 192. Ratings were close: 4.9 stars against 4.8. Review count mattered more than the star score.
Step 7: Save the sheet and set a date
Date the sheet. Put a reminder on your phone for 30 days out. Run the same 10 questions, same tools, and compare. Judge change over four months, not one. One lucky answer proves nothing.
What if your business is not named?
Fix the cause you found in step 6. Here are the common ones and where to start.
| What you saw | Likely cause | First fix |
|---|---|---|
| Rivals have many more reviews | Review count is low | Ask every happy customer for a Google review, with the direct review link |
| Your site is never a source | The tool can't find a page that answers the question | Write one page per main service and per main town |
| Lists and directories name rivals | You are not on the lists AI reads | Claim Bing, Apple and Yelp listings, and ask list sites to include you |
| Your business name is wrong or missing details | Your name, phone or address differ across sites | Make them match everywhere |
| Your site is a source but you are not named | The page doesn't say who you are and where you work | Put your name, license number, towns and phone in plain text |
Check the basics first
Before you try anything fancy, confirm the doors are open:
- Your Google Business Profile is claimed and complete. Our guide on how to set up a Google Business Profile walks through it.
- Your site lets the search bots in. ChatGPT search uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI says sites that opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, and that changes can take about 24 hours to apply (OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers). Some sites block bots by mistake, through a plugin or a host setting, so check yours. Our robots.txt guide for AI crawlers explains what to allow.
- Your page can be indexed. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. It says there are no extra requirements and no special markup needed (Google Search Central: AI features and your website). So the first job is plain good SEO. If you want to check that, read Google Search Console for contractors.
Build what the tools read
For a deeper plan, see how to get recommended by ChatGPT as a contractor and how many Google reviews you need to get named by AI.
If you want to see how a trade site can answer these questions in plain text, look at the roofing guide on getting a roofing company recommended by ChatGPT or the plumbing one on getting a plumbing business recommended by ChatGPT.
Can Google Search Console show AI traffic?
Partly. Google says visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in your overall search traffic in Search Console, and they appear in the Performance report under the Web search type (Google Search Central: AI features). You cannot split them out from normal clicks there.
That means Search Console tells you if your page is being shown and clicked, but not which part was the AI box. For the AI part, your notebook test is still the best method.
Do you need a paid tracker?
Not to start. Paid trackers exist and they run the same questions on a schedule. They save time once you have many questions or many locations. For one contractor with one service area, 30 minutes a month by hand does the job and teaches you more, because you read the answers yourself.
If you do buy a tool, ask what it measures. A tool that only counts "mentions" and does not show the questions, the full answers and the cited sources is hard to act on.
A 15 minute monthly routine
- Open a private window.
- Run your 10 questions in ChatGPT and in Google.
- Fill in the sheet. Mark moved up, moved down, or same.
- Pick one fix from the table above.
- Do that fix this week.
Keep one fix at a time. If you change six things at once you will not know what worked.
Common questions
Does ChatGPT know my business exists?
Ask it your exact business name plus your town. If it describes you correctly, it has found enough about you. If it gives vague or wrong details, or mixes you up with another company, your name, phone and address are probably not consistent across your website, Google profile and directories. Fix those first.
Why does ChatGPT name my competitor and not me?
Usually because the competitor has more reviews, more listings, and pages that answer the question in plain text. In the Zarla study, named businesses had a median of 444 Google reviews against 192 for those not named. Look at what the named business has that you do not, and close that gap one piece at a time.
Do I need to pay ChatGPT or Google to be recommended?
No. Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking in the map results (Google Business Profile Help). What you can control is your reviews, your listings and your website.
How often should I check?
Once a month is enough. Answers change from one ask to the next, so a daily check just gives you noise. Compare month to month and look at four months before you decide something worked.
Is it fine to test while signed in to ChatGPT?
You can, but a private logged-out window gives a fairer picture of what a stranger sees. Your own chat history and settings can change what the tool returns. Use logged out for the score and signed in only for your own research.
If you would like to see a website built to answer these questions for your trade, see a free demo site.
Sources
- Zarla: AI Visibility Index (2026)
- BrightLocal: Nearly Half of Consumers are Asking AI for Business Recommendations (2026)
- ACHR News: Scorpion's report on homeowners and local service businesses (2026)
- Google Business Profile Help: Improve your local ranking (2026)
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers (2026)
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website (2026)
We build your new website free, before you pay, then work every week to get you named when homeowners ask Google and AI who to call. Get your free demo site.