How to get ChatGPT to recommend your business
You cannot make an AI recommend a business. You can find the pages its answers cite and get your business on them. The order we would work in, with what our own audits showed.
Nobody can make ChatGPT recommend a business. What you can do is find the pages the answers lean on and make sure your business is on them, described the way a customer would search for it. Here is the order we would work in, with what our own audits showed at each step.
1. Measure before you change anything
Ask the questions a customer would ask, with the city in each one and without the business name, in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Count how many answers name the business and who is named instead. Our guide on how to check if ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend a business covers this step.
Check all 3 AIs, not only ChatGPT. Across 15 audits we ran in October 2026, ChatGPT named the business in 40 of its 90 answers, Claude in 50 and Gemini in 49. Being named by one says little about the others.
2. Find the pages the answers cite
With web search on, each answer lists the pages it used. Write down every one and count how often each comes up. In 270 answers from those 15 audits, review and directory sites such as Yelp, Tripadvisor and Facebook were cited in 103. The businesses' own websites were cited in 38.
A citation shows which page supports a sentence. It does not prove why a business was picked, so treat the list as your best lead, not as a cause.
3. Be on the directories the answers use
Start with the directories cited most often for your category and city. Claim the listing, and keep the name, address, phone number and category the same as on your Google Business Profile. Answers often quote what these sites say, such as a rating and the number of reviews, so a listing that is missing or out of date is a gap you can close.
4. Get into the local guides
City guides and "best of" lists come up again and again. In 18 answers about bookstores in Portland, Travel Portland's site was cited in 12. In 18 answers about hotels in London, Time Out was cited in 5. If a guide that covers your category keeps appearing, find out how businesses get included in it.
5. Make your own site say what you do and where
For 5 of the 15 businesses we audited, no answer cited their own website at all. Make sure your site states, in plain words, what the business does, which city and areas it serves, and how to contact it. Then the site at least gives an answer something to cite.
6. Do not count on being well known
Fame did not decide it in our audits. The Ned in London was named in 3 of 18 answers about hotels, while Claridge's was named in 9. Ichiran Shibuya was named in 5 of 18 answers about ramen in Tokyo, Fuunji in 10. The two lowest counts were small dental practices in Austin and Madrid, at 2 of 18 each.
7. Measure again, the same way
Repeat the same questions in all 3 AIs a few weeks after the work, and compare the counts. AI answers change from day to day, and in 18 answers one answer moves the count by one. A change of 1 or 2 is normal. A change of 3 or more is worth a look.
Or let RecoRadar run the check
RecoRadar asks 6 customer questions in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, counts the 18 answers, and lists who was named instead and every page each answer cited, in about 60 seconds. How RecoRadar measures AI recommendations explains how we ask and count.
