You can check whether ChatGPT names your business in about an hour, but one check tells you almost nothing, because ChatGPT gives different answers to the same question. The bottom line: write the questions a customer would ask, run each several times in fresh sessions with search on, record whether you are named and which sources are cited, and calculate the share of runs that name you.
Why a single check misleads
SparkToro and Gumshoe ran 12 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's AI features 2,961 times and found less than a 1 in 100 chance that two responses returned the same list of brands, and about 1 in 1,000 for the same list in the same order. They concluded that ranking position in an AI answer is noise, and that how often a brand appears across many runs is far more stable. Also, ChatGPT does not always search: Semrush found web search on 34.5 percent of queries as of February 2026. Answers without a search cite no pages at all.
The method, step by step
- Write 10 questions a real customer would ask. Include your city or service area and the situation, for example "who can repair a commercial walk in cooler in Tampa today."
- Open a fresh chat for every run. Use a temporary chat or a new conversation so earlier answers do not influence the next one.
- Turn search on. Use the option that lets ChatGPT search the web, so you can see sources.
- Paste the question and wait for the answer.
- Record four things. Whether your business is named, its position in any list, whether your website is cited as a source, and which other businesses and sources appear.
- Repeat five times for each question. That is 50 runs.
- Calculate your share. Runs that name you divided by total runs, for each question and overall.
- Do the same for your two closest competitors. Their share is the benchmark.
A recording sheet
| Question | Run | Named? | Position | Your site cited? | Other names | Sources cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who repairs a walk in cooler in Tampa | 1 | No | No | Company A, Company B | Yelp, Company A site | |
| Who repairs a walk in cooler in Tampa | 2 | Yes | 2 | Yes | Company A, You | Your site, directory |
Reading the results
- Named in most runs. You are visible for that question. Protect it and check monthly.
- Named in some runs. You are in the candidate set. Strengthen the page and corroboration for that question.
- Never named. Check crawler access, Bing indexing, and whether your page answers that question specifically.
- Named but never cited. A system is talking about you from other sites. Your own page may not be supplying a quotable answer.
What to check if you are absent
Confirm OAI-SearchBot is allowed in robots.txt, that your content is in the raw HTML because the major AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, and that Bing has indexed the page, since Seer Interactive found 87 percent of more than 500 SearchGPT citations matched Bing's top results. Our free scan checks the first two in about ten seconds.
Questions people ask
How do I check if ChatGPT recommends my business?
Write 10 customer style questions, run each five times in fresh chats with search on, record whether you are named and which sources are cited, and calculate the share of runs that name you.
Why does ChatGPT give different answers each time?
Its output varies by run. SparkToro and Gumshoe found less than a 1 in 100 chance that two responses returned the same brand list.
Does ChatGPT always cite sources?
No. It searched on 34.5 percent of queries as of February 2026, and answers without a search cite no pages.
How often should I check?
Monthly, with the same questions and the same number of runs, comparing shares over time.