Which SEO agencies ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini name in 50 US cities
900 AI answers across the 50 largest US cities: which SEO agencies each city's answers named most, where one agency leads, and where none does.
We asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini 6 questions a business owner might ask when looking for an SEO agency, in each of the 50 largest US cities. That is 900 answers. Each city's 5 most-named agencies, the counts and the questions are on the full results page.
The most-named agencies
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency was named in 17 of 18 answers in Dallas, the highest count in the study. It was named in 16 of 18 in Arlington.
Five more agencies were named in 16 of 18 answers in their city:
- Coalition Technologies in Los Angeles
- Agency Jet in Minneapolis
- LAB Digital Creative in Memphis
- Dragonfly Digital Marketing in Baltimore
- Commonwealth Creative Marketing in Virginia Beach
Some cities have a clear pick, others do not
In Oklahoma City, Outpace SEO was named in 13 of 18 answers, 7 more than any other agency. In Dallas the lead was 5: Thrive in 17, Dallas SEO Dogs in 12.
In Mesa and Tampa, the most-named agency was in only 8 of 18 answers. Four cities had a tie at the top: Jacksonville, El Paso, Boston and Sacramento. In Jacksonville, DAGMAR Marketing and Jax Media Team were each named in 13 of 18.
In Nashville, the 18 answers named 62 different businesses.
Most names appear in one city only
The 50 lists have 250 places, and 229 different agencies fill them. A few agencies appear in several cities:
- SmartSites is in the top 5 of 6 cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Detroit, Miami and Tampa.
- Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is in the top 5 of Dallas, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Atlanta and Arlington, and of New York under a shorter name.
- Jives Media is in the top 5 of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.
The 3 AIs agreed on the leader
In 49 of the 50 cities, the most-named agency was named by all 3 AIs. Further down the lists they agree less. In Los Angeles, all 3 named Coalition Technologies and HawkSEM, while SmartSites and Loopex Digital were named only by Claude and Gemini.
How we measured
One audit per city: 6 questions, each asked to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini through their official APIs with web search on, for 18 answers per city. New York was measured on October 19, 2026, the other 49 cities on October 24. A count is how many of the 18 answers named the agency.
Before publishing we read every answer for 5 cities (Kansas City, Omaha, Mesa, Nashville and Miami) and counted the 25 agencies listed there by hand. 21 counts matched. The other 4 were 1 lower than the hand count, because an answer named the agency only in passing or under a second spelling. None was higher.
AI answers change from day to day, so each count holds for its date. It is a count of answers, not a ranking or an award. How RecoRadar measures AI recommendations explains the questions and how a name is counted.
Check your own agency
If you sell SEO, the same check works on your agency and on each client: the questions a customer would ask, the agencies or businesses the AIs name instead, and the sites behind each answer.
