How to check whether ChatGPT recommends your business: a 30-minute test
To check whether ChatGPT recommends your business, write down 10 real customer questions, ask them in a clean session with web search turned on, and note in a spreadsheet whether you are mentioned in the text, whether your website is cited as a source and who appears instead of you. The test takes about 30 minutes and can be repeated every month.
Why the test is worth doing
Your Google rankings do not tell you whether an AI assistant recommends you. You can rank first for a keyword and be completely missing from ChatGPT’s answer to the same question, or the other way around. The only way to find out is to ask systematically and write down what you get.
The test below is a simplified, manual version of the method we use in our audits. The full version is described on our methodology page.
What you need
- a ChatGPT account, free or paid, with web search available;
- a private (incognito) browser window;
- a blank spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel;
- 30 uninterrupted minutes.
Step 1: write 10 real questions (10 minutes)
If you need a starting point, our AI question generator gives you 10 questions grouped by intent and a CSV table ready to fill in. Then add the real questions you get from customers.
Do not start from keywords. Start from the questions you hear from customers on the phone, by email or in your shop. Write them out in full, the way an ordinary person would type them, and in the language your customers actually use: in Romania that is usually Romanian, and the answers can differ from those to the same question asked in English.
Split them into four types of intent, two or three of each:
- Recommendation: “Which dental clinic in Iași would you recommend for an implant?”
- Comparison: “What’s the difference between a gym membership with a trainer and one without?”
- Price: “How much does a physiotherapy session cost in Iași?”
- Local: “Where can I get commercial ovens serviced in the Moldova region?”
Avoid including your business name in the question. The point is to find out whether you are recommended, not whether the model knows you when you give it your name.
Tip: if you use Google Search Console, look at long searches phrased as questions. They are a good source of real questions.
Step 2: set up the spreadsheet (3 minutes)
Create a spreadsheet with the following columns:
| Column | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Date | The day of the test |
| Question | The exact wording, as you wrote it |
| Intent | Recommendation, comparison, price or local |
| Model | ChatGPT (and, optionally, Gemini, Perplexity) |
| Mention | Yes or no: does your business name appear in the text? |
| Citation | Yes or no: is there a link to your website as a source? |
| Cited page | The exact URL, if you are cited |
| Competitors named | The businesses that appear instead of you |
| Cited sources | The websites shown as sources: directories, press, forums |
| Accuracy | Is the information about your business correct? What is wrong? |
Step 3: ask the questions (12 minutes)
- Open as neutral a session as possible. Ideally, use a private window. If you are logged in, turn memory off for now or use a temporary chat, so your history does not influence the answer.
- Turn on web search if it is not on automatically. For local questions ChatGPT usually searches on its own, but it is worth making sure.
- Ask each question in a new conversation. Otherwise, earlier answers influence the later ones.
- Copy the question exactly from the spreadsheet. Do not rephrase it on the spot.
- Read the answer and the list of sources. Note the mention, the citation, the competitors and the sources.
- Save the answer. Take a screenshot or paste the text into a separate tab. A month from now you will want to compare.
If you have time, repeat the same questions in Gemini and Perplexity and search for them on Google to see whether one of Google’s AI-generated summaries (AI Overviews) appears. Each model uses different sources, and the results can differ considerably.
Step 4: calculate two metrics (5 minutes)
Once the spreadsheet is filled in, calculate:
- AI presence rate: the number of questions where you appear (mention or citation), divided by the total number of questions and multiplied by 100. If you appear in 3 out of 10, the rate is 30%.
- Citation rate: the number of questions where your website is cited as a source, divided by the total and multiplied by 100.
Then look at the intent column. You may appear often for price questions but be missing from recommendations. That tells you where to act first.
How to read the results
You do not appear at all
This is the most common result for businesses that have not yet worked on GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), meaning optimization for AI assistants. Check the basics first: your robots.txt file does not block OpenAI’s search crawler (OAI-SearchBot), your Google Business Profile is complete, and your service pages answer questions clearly. The full list is in the checklist in our GEO guide.
You are mentioned but not cited
The model knows you, but takes its information from other sources, usually directories or reviews. You need pages on your website that answer those questions directly, with specific information and structured data.
You are cited, but with the wrong information
Check which page is cited and which external sources appear. The error often comes from an old directory listing or an outdated page on your own website. Fix the source, then run the test again in a few weeks.
The same competitors keep appearing
Open their cited pages and look at what they have that you do not: published prices, a separate page for each procedure, FAQs, more reviews. Also note the external sources that mention them.
Mistakes that undermine the test
- Questions that include your business name. You are testing whether you are known, not whether you are recommended.
- One conversation for all the questions. Context builds up and skews the answers.
- Changing the questions from month to month. The results can no longer be compared.
- Drawing conclusions from a single run. Answers vary, even on the same day. For important questions, run the test two or three times.
Repeat the test every month
The value of the test comes from repeating it. Ask the same 10 questions every month, under the same conditions, and watch the trend. A single run shows you where you stand today. Three or four runs show you whether the changes to your website are working.
If you do not have time to do this every month, our Monthly GEO monitoring service does it for you, across more models and more questions. And if you would like to see the result once, with no effort, request a Free GEO audit: we test 10 real questions from your industry and send you your score and your top 3 priorities within 48 hours.