Why isn't ChatGPT recommending my business?

Start here, because it's the one cause that makes every other fix pointless. If your robots.txt tells GPTBot or OAI-SearchBot to stay out, ChatGPT is working from what other sites say about you. Security plugins, hosting presets and copied "block AI" snippets do this more often than owners expect.

Our free AI crawler checker reads your robots.txt and shows which AI crawlers are allowed. It takes a few seconds. If the check passes and you still suspect a block, look at your host's or CDN's bot settings, since a firewall block never shows up in robots.txt.

Assistants name businesses they can confirm in more than one place. Your own site saying you're the best plumber in Plano counts for little on its own. Your Google Business Profile, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau and the directories your trade uses are where that gets confirmed.

Check that your name, address, phone number and services read the same everywhere. A firm listed under two names, or with an old address on half its listings, looks like two uncertain businesses rather than one certain one.

Buyers don't ask for a business in general. They ask for an emergency plumber, an accountant for an LLC, a dentist who takes their insurance. Each of those is a separate answer with its own short list.

If your site has one services page listing everything you do, there's nothing specific for the assistant to quote. A page per service, with the city near the top and a plain answer in the first two sentences, gives it something to work with.

Look at the sources Perplexity and ChatGPT cite when they answer questions about your trade in your city. They're usually best-in-city roundups, directory pages and forum threads where someone asked for a name. If your competitors appear on those pages and you don't, that's most of your answer.

Ask to be considered for the roundups, claim the directory profiles, and let happy customers mention you in the threads. Don't post fake recommendations; they get spotted and they hurt.

A profile whose last review is from two years ago gives an assistant less to go on than one still collecting them. Reviews that name the job ("fixed our water heater the same day") also tell it what you're good at, which a row of "great service" doesn't.

Ask for a review after every finished job, and reply to the ones you get.

One question asked once in your own ChatGPT account isn't a fair test. Answers change between runs, and your account carries your history and location. A fresh chat with history off, run several times with different wording, is closer to what a stranger sees.

Check the other assistants too. On 4 October 2026 we counted 16,428 cases where a business was named for a question all four assistants had been asked. In 91% of them only one assistant named it. Being missing from ChatGPT and present in Perplexity is common.

In this order, because each step makes the next one count for more:

• Run the AI crawler checker and unblock anything blocked.
• Fill in every field of your Google Business Profile and ask your last ten customers for a review.
• Claim your listings on the directories your trade uses, with the same name, address and phone number.
• Write a page for the service you most want to be named for, answering the buyer's question in the first two sentences.
• Find the roundups and threads the assistants cite for your city, and get onto them honestly.