Local GEO: how to get recommended by ChatGPT in your town

How does ChatGPT choose which local businesses to recommend?

For a local question, ChatGPT usually runs a web search, reads a handful of pages and writes an answer that names two or three businesses. It does not look you up in one directory: it cross-checks what it finds.

OpenAI says ChatGPT search leverages third-party search providers, as well as content provided directly by its partners, including for maps^[1]. In practice, the answer is built from the pages those engines return: your website, your business profile, directories, review sites and local press.

Take a fictional example: Meeple Junction, a board game store in Denver. When someone asks “Which stores in Denver have a big selection of board games?”, the assistant only names the store if it finds it, consistently, in several of those sources. An address that differs from one site to the next, or missing opening hours, is enough for it to pick a better-documented competitor.

Which local sources matter most?

Start with your business profiles, then review sites, then directories and local media. That is the order in which the effort pays off fastest, because these sources feed the search engines that assistants query.

On Google, three factors decide local ranking: relevance, distance and prominence, and Google states that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking^[2]. Prominence takes into account how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have. A complete profile and a steady flow of reviews work twice: in Google Maps, and in the pages an assistant reads afterwards. ChatGPT recommendations cannot be bought either: OpenAI, which announced ad tests in January 2026, says ads do not influence answers and are always kept separate^[3].

Examples of US platforms; the useful list depends on your trade.

Bing matters too: ChatGPT search relies on third-party search providers^[1], and Bing Places is Microsoft’s tool for adding or changing your business information in Bing Maps^[4]. Apple Business lets you claim your location on Maps and manage your logo, hours and photos there^[5]. A perfect Google profile next to an abandoned Bing listing tells two different stories about your business.

How can you see what ChatGPT says about you today?

Ask it your customers’ questions, the way they phrase them, and write down who gets named and from which sources. One question is not enough, because answers change from one run to the next.

Prepare about ten questions that mix intents: finding a place, comparing, asking for advice. For Meeple Junction, that could be “Where can I buy Pokémon and Lorcana cards in Denver?” or “Which game store is best at helping beginners?”. Open the Sources button under each answer: it shows which sites the assistant read.

A SparkToro study of nearly three thousand answers found that lists of recommended brands change almost every time the same question is asked again^[6]. That is why a single check proves nothing. The free test asks ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity a few of your customers’ questions and shows where you stand; daily tracking, such as iPand’s, then measures the trend.

What should you fix on your website?

Make sure an assistant can confirm, on your own site, what your profiles say: name, address, phone, hours, services and service area. Then publish one clear page per service and per area.

• Write your name, address and phone exactly as on your Google profile, as text rather than inside an image.
• Add LocalBusiness structured data: schema.org covers the address, phone, hours (openingHoursSpecification) and payment methods (paymentAccepted)^[7].
• Create one page per service, written as the answer to a real question: “e-bike repair in Capitol Hill, Denver” rather than “our services”.
• Let OAI-SearchBot in. It is the crawler behind ChatGPT search, and a site that opts out of it is not shown in its answers^[8].

That last point takes two minutes to check; our article on robots.txt and AI crawlers shows how.

The mistakes that knock a business out

The costliest mistakes are the ones that make your information contradictory or suspicious. Google’s guidelines list several of them, and they apply to every platform^[9].

• A duplicate profile: Google asks for one profile per business. Two listings for the same address split your reviews and blur your details.
• A name stuffed with keywords: adding “cheap board games Denver” to your name is not allowed, and an assistant reads it as a mismatch with your site.
• Too many categories: Google advises using as few as possible, the most specific ones, describing your core business.
• Forgotten special hours: holidays and closures are set separately; an answer that sends a customer to a locked door is expensive.

Our article on the fields AI engines read goes through the profile field by field.

How long before you see a difference?

Nobody can promise you a date or a spot in an answer: the assistant decides. What you can do is measure before, fix, then measure again on the same questions.

Technical fixes are picked up quickly: OpenAI mentions about 24 hours for a robots.txt change^[8]. The rest depends on how often engines re-read your pages and profiles, and on how long it takes to build up recent reviews. Think in weeks, and look at the trend rather than a single answer.

Habits are moving fast. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of US consumers found that 45% had used a generative AI tool to find a local business, up from 6% a year earlier^[10]. Google AI Overviews, which began rolling out to everyone in the US in May 2024^[11], add another answer box above the results; our article on AI Overviews covers what changes.

Sources

1. OpenAI — Introducing ChatGPT search — openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search/ , accessed October 23, 2026, page dated October 31, 2024
2. Google Business Profile Help — improve your local ranking — support.google.com/business/answer/7091 , accessed October 23, 2026
3. OpenAI — Our approach to advertising — openai.com/index/our-approach-to-advertising-and-expanding-access/ , accessed October 23, 2026, page dated January 16, 2026
4. Microsoft — add and manage your Bing Places listing — support.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/add-and-manage-your-business-listing , accessed October 23, 2026
5. Apple Business — claim your location on Maps — business.apple.com/ , accessed October 23, 2026
6. SparkToro — AIs are highly inconsistent when recommending brands — sparktoro.com/blog/new-research-ais-are-highly-inconsistent-when-recommending-brands-or-products-marketers-should-take-care-when-tracking-ai-visibility/ , accessed October 23, 2026, page dated January 28, 2026
7. schema.org — LocalBusiness — schema.org/LocalBusiness , accessed October 23, 2026
8. OpenAI — Overview of OpenAI Crawlers — developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots , accessed October 23, 2026
9. Google Business Profile Help — guidelines for representing your business — support.google.com/business/answer/3038177 , accessed October 23, 2026
10. BrightLocal — Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 — www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/ , accessed October 23, 2026, page dated February 11, 2026
11. Google — Generative AI in Search (May 2024) — blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/ , accessed October 23, 2026, page dated May 14, 2024