How to check whether AI recommends your business (and what to fix if it doesn't)

Why you need to check, not guess

It is easy to assume AI assistants know about your business because Google does. They often do not, or they describe you in a way that leaves you out of the shortlist. The only way to know is to ask them the same questions your customers ask.

This takes about an hour the first time. After that, a quick check every week or two is enough to spot changes.

Step 1: Write your question list

Write ten to fifteen questions. Mix three kinds:

• Recommendation questions: "Who is the best wedding photographer in Bristol?"
• Comparison questions: "Which is better for a small team, X or Y?"
• Problem questions: "How do I stop my boiler losing pressure?" These often lead to a business recommendation at the end.

Use the words a customer would use, including location or industry where it matters. Avoid your brand name in the question, since you want to know whether AI suggests you unprompted.

Step 2: Ask each assistant

Ask every question in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and search it on Google to see whether an AI answer appears at the top. A few practical tips:

• Use a private or logged-out window where you can, so past conversations do not shape the answer.
• Ask each question in a fresh chat.
• Copy the answer or take a screenshot, with the date.
• Note which sources the assistant cites, if it shows them.

Step 3: Record the results

A simple table works well. For each question and each assistant, record:

• Named or not named.
• If named, your position in the list (first, third, last).
• Who was named instead.
• Which pages or sites were cited as sources.

After one round you will usually see a clear picture: questions where you are doing well, questions where the same competitor keeps appearing, and questions where nobody local is named at all.

Step 4: Work out why others get named

For each question where you are missing, open the pages the assistant cited or the websites of the businesses it named. Look for what they have that you do not.

• A page that targets exactly that question or service.
• Clear prices or price ranges.
• An FAQ that answers the question directly.
• Reviews, case studies or credentials on the page.
• Mentions on directories, lists or review sites the assistant cited.

Write down the gap in one sentence. For example: "They have a pricing page and we do not" or "They are listed on the two directories ChatGPT cited".

Step 5: Fix the gaps

Turn each gap into one concrete task, and start with the questions that matter most to your business.

1. Create or improve the page that answers the question, with the direct answer near the top.
2. Add the facts AI likes to quote: what, who for, where, how much.
3. Add FAQ and organisation schema so the content is easy to parse.
4. Make sure AI crawlers are allowed in robots.txt.
5. Get listed on the relevant directories and lists the assistants cited.

Our guide on getting recommended by ChatGPT goes deeper into each of these.

Step 6: Check again

After a change goes live, give it a few days to be crawled, then ask the same questions again. Record the result next to the old one. Over time, this log shows you what actually moves the needle for your business.

Doing this by hand works, but it is repetitive. Visiblio runs the questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity every week, records who gets named, reads why, drafts the fixes for your approval and re-checks after each new page. Run the free check to see your first results in about a minute.

An example of a first check

Here is what a first round often looks like for a small business. This example is illustrative, not real data.

A web design studio writes twelve questions, such as "best web designer for small businesses in Leeds" and "how much does a small business website cost in the UK". After asking four assistants, it finds that it is named for two questions about its own city, missing from every pricing question, and that the same two competitors appear again and again. Both competitors have a clear pricing page and are listed on a regional business directory that Perplexity cites.

That gives the studio two specific tasks: publish an honest pricing page with ranges and what changes the price, and get listed on that directory. Both are small, concrete and easy to check afterwards.

How often to check, and what to keep

Once a week or once every two weeks is enough for most businesses. Checking daily mostly shows noise, because answers naturally vary between runs.

• Keep the same question list over time, so results are comparable. Add new questions rather than rewording old ones.
• Record the date, the assistant, whether you were named, your position and who else appeared.
• Save screenshots of answers that matter, especially when you appear for the first time.
• Note every change you make to your site next to the date, so you can connect cause and effect.

A plain spreadsheet works well. One row per question, one column per assistant, and a new tab for each round of checks.

What good progress looks like

Do not expect to be named first by every assistant for every question. A realistic goal is steady movement: being named for a few more questions each month, appearing higher in lists where you were already present, and seeing the assistants describe your business accurately. Accuracy matters as much as appearing at all, because a wrong description can send the wrong customers your way or put the right ones off.

If after several rounds nothing moves for a question, look again at the sources the assistants cite. The answer is usually in what those pages have and yours does not.

Common reasons a business is not named

• AI crawlers are blocked by robots.txt or a security setting.
• The site does not clearly say what the business does, where and for whom.
• There is no page for the specific service or question.
• Business details differ between the website and directories.
• Competitors are mentioned on lists and review sites, and you are not.
• The site is new and simply has not been picked up yet.

Questions