More customers are asking ChatGPT for a recommendation before they ever open Google. So it's worth knowing: when someone asks for a business like yours, does ChatGPT name you? Here's a simple, free way to find out in about half an hour — and what to do with the answer.
When ChatGPT answers "who's the best [your service] in [your town]?", it hands the user a short shortlist of names. Being on that list is the new version of ranking first — except there's no page two. You're either mentioned or you're not. The good news is you don't need any special tool to check; you can test it yourself in three steps.
Step 1 — Ask the questions your customers ask
Open ChatGPT in a temporary or logged-out chat so your own history doesn't bias the result. Then ask the questions a real customer would — not questions about your brand name (of course it knows that), but the buying questions where you'd want to be recommended. Vary the phrasing and always include your location. For example:
- "Best [your service] in [your town]?"
- "Who should I hire to [job your customer needs done] near [area]?"
- "Recommend a reliable [your trade/category] in [region]."
- "I need [specific problem solved] — who can help in [town]?"
Aim for 10–15 questions. If ChatGPT asks to search the web or you have that option, enable it — it reflects how most people now use it.
Step 2 — Record what comes back
For each answer, note three things: were you named at all? If so, how prominently (first pick, or a passing mention)? And was the description accurate — right services, right location? Keep it in a simple table. Watch who does get named, too — those are the competitors currently winning the AI shortlist, and they're a useful benchmark.
Step 3 — Score your mention rate
Count how many of your questions produced a mention. A rough read:
- 0–1 in 10 — effectively invisible. ChatGPT isn't recommending you.
- 2–4 in 10 — occasionally surfacing; real room to grow.
- 5+ in 10 — genuinely visible for your category.
Most small businesses that have never optimised for AI search score at the bottom the first time — which is a starting point, not a verdict. For the wider picture, this is exactly what an AI visibility score measures.
If you're not showing up — what to do
Low score? The usual causes are fixable, and they're the same ones behind most AI-invisibility cases:
- AI crawlers or Bing can't index you. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and check your robots.txt — see why your business is invisible to ChatGPT.
- Your facts aren't machine-readable. Add Organization, LocalBusiness and FAQ schema.
- Not enough topical depth or consistent mentions. Build genuine content on your core service and keep your details consistent across the web.
Want the test run properly across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, scored and turned into a fix list? Our free AI SEO audit does exactly that — one free audit per business, no signup.