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Guide · September 2026 Index data

How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

What the September 2026 AIGROW Index shows about how ChatGPT names businesses, what OpenAI says about how it reads the web, and the steps that follow from both.

Run the free AI scanRead the full report

By the AIGROW Team · data under CC BY 4.0

ChatGPT, local trades
90.5%of answers named at least one business
Answers
15,142
Names per answer
2.5
Repeated when asked again
53.0%
Named by no other assistant
54.7%

How the Index was made

ChatGPT recommends businesses from what it already knows and, with search on, from what it finds on the web. In the September 2026 AIGROW Index, asked with no web search, it named at least one local business in 90.5% of 15,142 answers, and no other assistant named 54.7% of the businesses it gave. Check each assistant separately.

What the Index shows about ChatGPT

1,402 pages of the September 2026 edition, each question asked three times, with no web search.

  1. Asked for a local business, ChatGPT named at least one in 90.5% of its answers.

    1,446 of 15,142 answers about local trades named no business. A failed call is not counted as an answer: 0 of 16,798 calls failed. About software, it named no one in 0.0% of 1,656 answers.

  2. When it named someone, it gave 2.5 names per answer.

    Local trades, counting only the answers that named someone. Among the four assistants, from 2.5 for ChatGPT to 5.4 for Claude. About software, ChatGPT gave 3.2.

  3. Asked the same question again, it repeated 53.0% of its names.

    Each question was asked three times. For each one, the names that came back in at least two runs, as a share of every name those runs gave. Among the four assistants, from 38.8% for Claude to 61.1% for Grok.

  4. 54.7% of the businesses ChatGPT named, no other assistant named on the same page.

    7,319 of 13,377 different businesses, counted on the pages where another assistant also named someone. Being named by ChatGPT says little about whether the others name you.

How ChatGPT finds businesses

With no web search, ChatGPT can name only businesses it learned about in training, which is what the figures above measure. With search on, it reads the web. What OpenAI says about that:

OAI-SearchBot
Reads the web for ChatGPT's search. OpenAI says a site that blocks it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though it can still appear as a navigational link.
ChatGPT-User
Visits a page when something a ChatGPT user asked for needs it.
GPTBot
Collects pages to train OpenAI's models. OpenAI sets it apart from OAI-SearchBot, so a site can block one and allow the other.

Sources: OpenAI, overview of its crawlers.

What to do, in this order

The first steps take an afternoon. Getting written about is the slow part, and the one that decides answers given without a search.

Ask ChatGPT what your customers askPut the question the way a customer would, with the city: a dentist in Leeds, an accountant in Lyon. Then ask again in a new chat, because the answer changes: in the Index, ChatGPT repeated 53.0% of its names when asked the same question again.freea new chat each time
Let OAI-SearchBot inOpen robots.txt and check that nothing blocks OAI-SearchBot, by name or through a rule for every bot. OpenAI says a change takes about 24 hours to apply. GPTBot can stay blocked if you do not want your pages used for training.robots.txtabout 24 hours
Write out who you are and whereName, city, area, services and prices in the text of the page, not only in an image or a PDF. One page for each main service, and the same details, word for word, on your Google profile and in trade directories.on your sitetext, not images
Get written about where assistants readAsked with no web search, an assistant can name only businesses that were in the text it learned from. Reviews, local press and trade directories are where other people put your name next to your trade and city, and what they write reaches that knowledge only when a new model is trained.off your siteit takes months
Check the other assistants tooBeing named by one assistant says little about the others. The free scan asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok the same questions and shows which of them name someone else instead of you.free scanfour assistants

The four assistants side by side

The same kinds of questions, asked with no web search. Names per answer counts only the answers that named someone.

The full report
AssistantPagesNamed no one, localNames per answerRepeated when asked againNamed by no other assistant
ChatGPT1,4029.5%2.553.0%54.7%
Claude1,40064.3%5.438.8%69.8%
Gemini2,4000.0%5.158.5%74.3%
Grok10476.5%3.361.1%29.5%

What this does not show

No web search
Every answer came from what the model already holds, asked with no web search, no location and no chat history. ChatGPT in its own app, with search on, can answer differently.
Asked directly
The first pages of this edition went through a reseller since dropped from the Index, whose answers named someone far more often. This guide counts only the answers ChatGPT gave when asked directly, on 1,402 pages, so its figures differ from the report's, which counts every call.
One month
These are the figures of the September 2026 edition. A new model can change any of them, and the next edition will show whether it did.
The maker's words
What OpenAI says about how it reads the web is quoted from its own documentation, as read in September 2026. Check it again before you act on it.

Does ChatGPT name your business?

The free scan asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok your own customers' questions and shows who they name instead of you.

Run the free AI scanBrowse the rankings

Edition September 2026 · data under CC BY 4.0