How to check if ChatGPT recommends your business
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Ask the questions your customers ask, such as "best bakery in the Mission", without your business's name, and note whether you are named and where. Ask more than once: the same question can name different businesses each time. Citation does this for free across OpenAI, Gemini and Claude with web search on, 12 fixed questions per engine, against your nearby competitors.
Checking by hand
- Write down five to ten questions a new customer would ask. Leave your business's name out. Mix a plain one ("best tacos in East Austin"), one with a place ("tacos near Zilker Park"), one with an occasion ("taco spot for a birthday dinner") and one with a detail ("tacos with vegan options").
- Ask each one in a new chat. If you use ChatGPT's memory, turn it off for the check, so past chats do not steer the answer.
- For each answer, note whether you are named, in what position, and which other businesses are named.
- Ask the same questions again on another day. Answers change from one run to the next, so a single check can mislead in either direction.
The four kinds of question above are the four kinds Citation asks: direct, near, occasion and attribute. The exact wording of Citation's questions stays private, so a score cannot be gamed by writing for them. How the questions are chosen.
Why one answer is not a measurement
Citation measured how much answers move on their own: across two full audits of a business that did not change, the score moved with a standard deviation of 4.73 points. That is why Citation treats a move under 10 points as steady. How the noise was measured.
Checking with Citation
| Compared | By hand | With Citation |
|---|---|---|
| Questions | The ones you think of | 12 fixed questions per engine, the same shape for every business |
| Engines | One app at a time | OpenAI (web search), Gemini (Google Search grounding) and Claude (web search) |
| Competitors | The names you happen to notice | Your nearby competitors from Google Places, scored on the same questions |
| Evidence | Your notes or screenshots | Every answer stored word for word, in a report link that never changes |
| Facts checked | Only what you spot | Up to five: hours, phone, address, kind of business and website, against your Google listing |
| Repeats | Whenever you ask again | Every week on Pro ($39 a month); a move under 10 points reads as steady |
Code computes the score; a language model only reads the answers. The report is free for any U.S. business with a Google listing. Home-services trades (plumbers, electricians, roofers) are not audited yet.
Citation asks each vendor's API with web search on. That is close to what the ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude apps show, not identical.