How ChatGPT recommends businesses (and what you can do about it)

More customers now ask ChatGPT questions like "best physiotherapist near me" or "which accounting software suits a small shop". The answer often recommends a few businesses by name and links to sources. If yours is not among them, it is fair to ask why, and how ChatGPT recommends businesses in the first place.

This post explains, using OpenAI's own documentation, how ChatGPT finds and cites businesses, what it does not tell us, and the practical steps a small business can take. It also shows you how to test where you stand.

Why ChatGPT recommendations matter now

ChatGPT has become a common place to ask for advice, and advice often includes "who should I use?". In Pew Research Center's February 2026 survey of U.S. adults, 44% said they use ChatGPT, up from 34% in 2025. Pew notes its question wording changed in 2026, so the comparison is not exact, and the data is for the United States, not India.

How people use it matters too. A study of ChatGPT consumer messages from May 2024 to June 2025 by OpenAI and Harvard economists, How People Use ChatGPT, classed 49% of messages as "Asking", meaning seeking information or advice to make a decision. Choosing a supplier is exactly that kind of decision.

How ChatGPT finds businesses: search, sources, answer

For questions that need current information, ChatGPT searches the web, reads the results and writes an answer with citations. Recommendations are built from what that search returns, not only from what the model learned in training.

1. It turns your question into search queries

OpenAI's help article on searching the web with ChatGPT says that when it uses search partners, ChatGPT generally rewrites the request into one or more targeted queries. It may estimate a general location from the user's IP address, so a "near me" question can become a query that names a city. The IP address itself is not passed to the search providers.

2. It retrieves results from search providers and its own crawler

When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT search in October 2024, it said the feature uses third-party search providers as well as content provided directly by partners. Its own crawler matters too. OpenAI's crawler documentation says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT's search features, and that sites which block it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. GPTBot, the training crawler, is controlled separately. Our guide on which AI crawlers to block or allow goes through each bot and what blocking it costs.

For business workspaces, OpenAI's Enterprise and Edu search article says disassociated search queries may be shared with Bing. That is one practical reason to make sure Bing can find and index your site, not only Google.

3. It writes an answer and cites sources

Answers that use search can include inline citations and a Sources list. OpenAI also warns that results and citations can be incomplete or wrong, so users are encouraged to check the source. For your business, that means the cited page is often where the customer goes next.

What we found in OpenAI's documentation

OpenAI documents the mechanics, but not a ranking formula. We read the OpenAI pages cited in this post (the search help article, the crawler overview, the publisher FAQ, the shopping help article and the ChatGPT search launch post) and sorted what they state from what they leave out.

The practical reading: anyone promising a guaranteed ChatGPT recommendation is claiming more than OpenAI itself does. What you can control is whether your site is reachable, and what the wider web says about you.

Why consistency, reviews and mentions matter

Because ChatGPT builds answers from several pages, what it says about you reflects what those pages say. If your website, directory listings and review profiles disagree, the answer may be vague, outdated or about a competitor with a similar name.

Entity consistency

Use the same business name, address, phone number, categories and service descriptions everywhere: your website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. On your site, Google's Organization structured data lets you list your official profiles with the sameAs property, which makes it clearer that they all describe one business.

Reviews

OpenAI's shopping help article says review summaries are built from public websites and that reviews are not verified by OpenAI. OpenAI documents this for products; it does not say how reviews affect local service recommendations. Even so, a steady flow of genuine, detailed reviews on public platforms gives any search-based answer more to work with. Never buy or fake reviews.

Third-party mentions

A business that appears only on its own website gives a search-based answer little independent evidence. Mentions in local news, industry associations, supplier pages, "best of" lists and community sites give it more pages to retrieve and cite. Earn them through real activity, not paid placements disguised as editorial.

Practical steps for a small business

Most of the work is ordinary SEO done thoroughly, plus a few checks specific to OpenAI. Work through these in order.

1. Check robots.txt. Make sure OAI-SearchBot is not blocked. OpenAI's publisher FAQ also says your host or CDN must allow traffic from OpenAI's published search crawler IP addresses. Blocking GPTBot is a separate choice and does not remove you from search. Our free AI Crawler Checker shows, bot by bot, which AI crawlers your robots.txt lets in.
2. Make sure you are indexed. Confirm your key pages are crawlable and indexed in Google and Bing. Our technical SEO audit checklist covers the checks.
3. Fix your business details. Align your name, address, phone and services across every profile, starting with a complete Google Business Profile.
4. Write pages that answer real questions. One clear page per service and location, with prices or price factors, areas served, credentials and FAQs in plain language.
5. Ask for reviews consistently. Ask every satisfied customer, on the platforms your customers use, and reply to reviews.
6. Earn local and industry mentions. Associations, local press, partner pages and events are all realistic for a small business.
7. Measure. Track sessions with utm_source=chatgpt.com in your analytics and run the prompt tests below every month.

For the full method across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features, read our guide to getting cited in AI search. If you serve customers in one area, our guide to local SEO for AI search explains how AI Mode, Ask Maps and ChatGPT pick local businesses.

How to test what ChatGPT says about you

Test with a fixed set of prompts, run the same way each month, and record which businesses and sources appear. Answers vary between runs and users, so one screenshot proves little; a repeated set shows a trend.

1. Write 10 to 20 prompts across the types below, using the words your customers use.
2. Run them in a logged-out or temporary chat where possible, with search on, and note your location setting.
3. Record whether you are mentioned, how you are described, and which sources are cited.
4. Repeat monthly and compare. Fix the sources that describe you wrongly.

If the cited sources are directories or review sites, that is useful too: it tells you which third-party profiles to fix first.

What not to do

Do not chase shortcuts. Fake reviews, mass-produced "best of" pages that rank yourself first, and paid links dressed up as editorial can mislead users and break platform policies. They also tend to be the first thing a careful answer engine or a sceptical customer sees through.

Be wary of anyone selling guaranteed ChatGPT placement. Our post on how to choose an SEO agency covers the questions to ask.

Next steps

Start with the two checks that take minutes: robots.txt and a brand-check prompt. Then work through the steps above, one each month.

If you would rather have help, our AI search optimisation service covers crawler access, entity consistency and prompt tracking, and you can ask us a question about your business.