Research, written for owners.
How AI assistants find, choose and describe local businesses, based on public studies and official documentation. Every figure links to its source, with its limits stated.
How ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot choose which local business to recommend
ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot pick local businesses from search results and licensed listing data. Whose data each one uses, with dates.
9 min readHow to check what ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI assistants say about your business
Ask 10 real customer questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Grok, log who is named and which sources are cited, repeat weekly, fix the source.
9 min readWhat is generative engine optimization (GEO), and how is it different from SEO
GEO is the work of making a business or page more likely to be cited by AI assistants. A KDD 2024 study found it can raise visibility in AI answers by up to 40%.
9 min readDo reviews and ratings affect whether AI recommends you?
Yes, AI assistants read ratings and reviews: Gemini uses Google Maps reviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity license Yelp. Here is what is shown for AI and for people.
10 min readYour Google Business Profile is now an AI answer: what to fill in and keep current
Gemini answers from Google Maps data: hours, ratings, reviews. A field-by-field Google Business Profile checklist, plus Apple Maps, Bing Places and Yelp.
10 min readWhich AI crawlers to allow in robots.txt (and which ones only train models)
Allow OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot, Bingbot and Applebot to stay in AI answers. GPTBot and ClaudeBot only control training.
9 min read