How to Check If AI Search Is Recommending Your Business
Contractors investing in GEO optimization are building citation signals, updating platform profiles, and writing structured content. Almost none of them know whether it is working. There is no Google Search Console equivalent for AI search. No dashboard tells you how many times ChatGPT named your business this week. The only way to know your current citation standing is to run the queries yourself.
This is the audit that tells you whether AI search engines are recommending your business right now, which ones are citing your competitors instead, and where to focus the next 30 days of GEO work. It takes 30 minutes the first time, 10 minutes each week after that.
The Five AI Search Engines That Matter for Contractors
Not every AI search engine carries the same weight for home service contractors. Homeowners searching for local services use these five most often, in order of volume and citation frequency for trade searches:
| Engine | How to access | Primary citation sources |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews | google.com (appears automatically for many local queries) | GBP, top organic results, Yelp, BBB |
| Perplexity | perplexity.ai | Yelp, Reddit, Angi, local directories |
| ChatGPT (Browse) | chatgpt.com with Browse enabled | BBB, Angi, Yelp, Bing index |
| Bing Copilot | bing.com or copilot.microsoft.com | Bing index, Yelp, Trustpilot, BBB |
| Apple Siri / Maps | iPhone voice search or Apple Maps | Apple Maps listings, Yelp |
Each engine draws from different source pools. Appearing on Yelp does not guarantee citation on ChatGPT. Ranking in Google does not guarantee an AI Overview mention. You need to check each engine separately using the same query format.
The Query Formula
Use this query structure across all five engines. Replace the brackets with your actual trade and city:
- "Who is the best [HVAC company / plumber / electrician / roofer] in [your city]?"
- "I need a [plumber / HVAC technician] in [city], who do you recommend?"
- "What is the most reliable [roofing company / landscaping company] in [city]?"
Run all three query variants on each engine. Different phrasing surfaces different citations. A contractor who appears for "reliable plumber in Denver" but not "best plumber in Denver" has a citation pattern worth diagnosing. Run both and record both results.
On Google specifically, search "[trade] in [city]" as a plain query and check whether an AI Overview box appears above the organic results. If one appears, open it and read the full text. Determine whether your business name, your website, or a platform profile you own appears in the cited sources. If a competitor is cited and you are not, the source link next to their name tells you exactly which platform Google pulled from.
What to Record
For each engine and each query variant, log four things:
- Does your business name appear? Yes or no. Any mention counts, even if it is not the primary recommendation.
- Which businesses are named? List every competitor that appears. This tells you who is winning citation share in your market.
- What source is cited for each business? The link or platform name next to each recommendation. This is the most actionable piece of data in the entire audit.
- What specific language does the engine use? Copy the exact sentence recommending a competitor. The keywords in that sentence tell you what signals the engine is reading and what your own profiles need to contain.
A simple spreadsheet with engines as rows and query variants as columns works. Fill in a Y or N for your business appearance, and paste the competitor name and citation source for each cell where you do not appear. After 15 minutes you have a citation map of your market.
Reading the Results
Three patterns cover most contractor audit outcomes.
Pattern 1: You appear on Google AI Overview but nowhere else. Your GBP and website are strong enough for Google’s own AI to find you, but you have no presence in the independent directories and review platforms that Perplexity and ChatGPT use. Fix: prioritize Yelp, Angi, and BBB profile completeness. Add review text to each platform. Perplexity specifically weights Yelp citations for local service queries. A Yelp listing with 10 text reviews showing service keywords and your city name is Perplexity-ready. An empty or unverified Yelp listing is invisible to it.
Pattern 2: A competitor appears consistently across all five engines. Click every source link next to their name. You will typically find the same two or three platforms appearing repeatedly: a strong Yelp profile, a complete BBB page, and an Angi listing with project reviews. Copy the structure of whatever they have that you do not. If their Yelp profile has 35 reviews with specific service and city mentions and yours has 6, the citation gap is a Yelp review gap. Close that gap before anything else.
Pattern 3: No contractors in your market appear on any AI engine. This happens in smaller cities and in trade categories where AI search has not yet built citation density. It is not a reason to stop GEO work. It is an opportunity. The contractor who builds a citation presence in a low-competition AI market before competitors do claims that territory for 12 to 18 months before others catch up. Perplexity and ChatGPT will eventually answer local contractor queries for your city. Be named in those answers before anyone else.
Setting Up Ongoing Monitoring
Run the full audit once. Then set up lightweight monitoring so you are not doing 30-minute sessions every week.
Google Alerts for your business name. Go to google.com/alerts and create an alert for your exact business name in quotes. Set delivery to "as it happens." Any time a new page mentions your business name, Google sends the alert. This catches new reviews, directory listings, and forum mentions as they appear without requiring manual checking.
Google Alerts for your competitors. Set the same alert for each of your top three competitors. When they are mentioned on a new platform, you see it immediately and can claim the same platform before it compounds their citation advantage. If a new local directory lists them, it will list you too once you submit.
Monthly Perplexity and ChatGPT checks. Calendar a 10-minute block on the first Monday of each month to run the three query variants on Perplexity and ChatGPT. Record whether your status has changed. Platforms you added reviews to in the prior month should start generating citations within 30 to 60 days. Monthly checks tell you which platform additions are producing results and which are not.
The Fixes That Move the Needle Fastest
Audit results reliably point to the same three root causes when a contractor is not being cited.
Missing or empty platform profiles. If Perplexity cites Yelp and you have no Yelp listing, claim and complete it this week. Each AI engine has one or two dominant citation sources for local contractor queries. The table at the top of this article shows which platform matters for each engine. A 30-minute session to claim and fill out a profile outweighs months of website optimization for AI citation purposes.
Review text lacks service and location keywords. An AI engine reading your Yelp listing looks for evidence that your business serves the queried location and performs the queried service. Reviews that say "great service, highly recommend" contain no useful citation signal. Reviews that say "called at 8pm when our furnace stopped working, they had a tech in Phoenix to us within 2 hours" give an AI engine a service type, a city, a problem, and a response time. Ask for specific reviews. After each job, text the customer: "If you have a minute, a Google or Yelp review mentioning the [specific service] and [city] would really help us reach more neighbors like you." The specificity of the ask produces the specificity of the review.
GBP primary category does not match the query. Google AI Overviews pull GBP primary category as a trust signal. An HVAC contractor with "Heating Contractor" as their GBP primary category will appear in fewer AI Overview citations for AC repair queries than one whose primary category is "Air Conditioning Contractor" or "HVAC Contractor." Check your GBP primary category against the service queries you want to be cited for. Change it to match your highest-volume service if it does not already.
Your 30-Day Action Plan After the Audit
- Week 1: Run the full audit and build your citation map. Identify which engines are not naming you and which platforms are driving competitor citations on those engines.
- Week 2: Claim and complete the one or two platforms that your audit identified as the primary citation sources for the engines where you are absent. Verify the listings, fill every field, and add at least three photos.
- Week 3: Ask your last five customers for a review on whichever platform you most recently claimed. Use the specific-ask script above. One review with real service and location detail outweighs five generic five-star reviews for AI citation purposes.
- Week 4: Set up Google Alerts for your business and top competitors. Calendar your monthly Perplexity and ChatGPT check. Run the audit again at the end of the month and compare to week one. The platforms you built out in week two should begin showing up as citation sources within 30 to 60 days of the listings going live.
Most contractors in any given market have not run this audit once. They are optimizing blind, adding platforms based on guesses, and unable to determine whether any of it is producing citations. The 30-minute audit turns GEO from a faith-based exercise into a measurable channel. You know who is appearing, on which engines, from which sources, and what you need to do to close the gap. Run it this week.