Does AI recommend your business?

When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude for a plumber or an accountant in their town, the tool usually runs a web search first and builds its answer from the pages it finds. It does not keep a ranked list of every business. It names the ones that appear clearly, and more than once, in what it reads.

So the answer rests on a short list of sources: local directories, review platforms, trade bodies, round-up articles and the businesses' own websites. A business missing from those pages, or described vaguely on them, is easy for the AI to leave out. Each tool also searches in its own way, so you can be named by one and not by another.

Start with the sources. The checker lists the websites the AI read for your questions, and those are the pages that decided the answer. A fair, accurate listing on the directories and review sites among them is usually the fastest change you can make.

Then make your own site easy to quote. Say in plain text, near the top of the page, what you do, where and for whom, with your address and phone number written the same way everywhere. Allow the AI search crawlers in robots.txt, or they cannot read the page at all.

• Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, and keep hours and services current.
• Get listed on the directories the checker shows the AI reading for your trade.
• Ask happy customers for reviews that mention the job and the town.
• Write one page per service and per main area, each answering what customers ask.

A full run gives six answers: two questions to each of three tools. Being named is worth 80 points spread across those answers, and a place in the first three businesses named is worth the other 20. A business named in every answer but never near the top scores 80; one named in three of six answers, always in the top three, scores 50.

An answer that fails to come back is left out of the sums, never counted as a miss. Treat the score as a snapshot: answers vary from one run to the next, so the trend over several checks tells you more than one number.

Usually because the competitor is easier to find in the pages the AI reads. They may be on more directories, have more recent reviews, or have a page that matches the exact question, such as 'emergency electrician in Oxford'.

Sometimes it is a technical block. If robots.txt stops the AI search crawlers, or your words only appear after JavaScript runs, the tool cannot read your site even when it finds it. The AI readiness checker tests both.

It can also be a name problem. If your business appears under slightly different names, addresses or phone numbers across the web, the AI may not connect them to one business, and a rival with one consistent listing looks more certain.