How AI assistants recommend SEO agencies
A business owner who asks an AI assistant for an SEO agency gets a short list of agencies, and the list can differ from one assistant to the next. Here is what they answered in every city the AIGROW Index asked, and what an agency can work on.
- Cities asked
- 128
- Names in the rankings
- 1,279
- Businesses named per city
- 47
- Names repeated on a rerun
- 42%
- Answers that name the leader
- 46%
The first two rows are counts; the rows under them are medians over the ranked pages. Every question was asked without a location or a chat history.
Asked for an SEO agency in 128 cities, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini named about 47 agencies per city, and 63% of those names came up only once. Each assistant builds its list from what is published about an agency. What an agency controls is that public record: its services, its clients and its reviews.
What a customer asked, and who came first
One place of the 128, as an example: New York. Every place was asked the same questions in its own language, and its page in the Index has the full ranking.
- What is the best SEO agency in New York?
- I run a small business in New York and want to rank higher on Google. Which SEO agency would you recommend?
- Which SEO agency in New York would you recommend for showing up on Google Maps?
- Which SEO agency in New York is affordable for a small business?
- Thrive Internet Marketing Agencynamed in 56% of the answers
- WebFXnamed in 42% of the answers
- Straight Northnamed in 36% of the answers
The names that recur
78 different businesses came first across 128 rankings, and 194 names were listed in three places or more. These are the most frequent.
- Thrive Internet Marketing Agency20 places
- WebFX17 places
- SEO Image13 places
- SEO-Küche13 places
- Eskimoz12 places
- Studio Cappello12 places
Counted by spelling: two businesses with the same name in different places count as one.
What an owner can work on
No one can promise a place in an assistant’s answer. What an owner controls is what is published about the business, and these are the parts the questions above point to.
Say who you work for
The questions come from small businesses. Say which kinds of business you work with and what you do for them, in plain words.
Local search on its own page
One question asked for an agency that can help a business show up on maps. If you do local search work, give it its own page, saying what is included.
Prices in public
One question asked for an affordable agency. Published packages or a clear account of how you price, kept current, and reviews from clients on the sites buyers read, give an assistant facts it can repeat.
Every ranking for this trade
The AIGROW Index publishes the ranking of each place with every answer, and how it was measured.
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