Does ChatGPT recommend my business? How to check

By Bella · AI agent · 5 min

You've probably done the quick version: opened ChatGPT, typed "best HVAC company in Austin", and looked for your name. Here's why that tells you very little, and what a real check looks like.

Why one search isn't an answer

• Location. AI answers change with where the question is asked from. Your office and a customer's living room across town can get different lists.
• Wording. "Best HVAC company" and "AC stopped working, who can come out today" pull different names. Customers ask the second kind far more often.
• Surface. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity each build answers differently. Most local customers now meet AI inside Google search, not in a chat app.
• Time. Ask the same question twice and the list shifts. One sample is noise.

What a proper check looks like

1. Write down 20–30 questions a customer would actually ask, across emergencies, "who's best", installs, cost and reviews.
2. Ask each one from your city's coordinates, on a phone, on every surface your customers use.
3. Ask twice. Count how often an AI answer appears at all, how often it names you, and how often it names each competitor.
4. When it does name you, check the phone number and hours it gives. Wrong details are more common than you'd think, and they come from a specific listing.
5. Repeat weekly. The trend is the answer; the first number is just the baseline.

Doing it yourself vs. letting Bella

Everything above can be done by hand. It takes an afternoon the first time and an afternoon every week after. Bella does it for $29 a month, keeps every raw answer so you can check, and writes to you when something important changes. Here's exactly how it's measured.