Guide / AI citations
Which websites do AI assistants cite for local businesses?
Which websites do AI assistants cite? It depends on the engine. On Houston “who is the best” questions, Google AI Mode cited Business Profiles 79% of the time, Perplexity split between business websites (49%) and directories (45%), and ChatGPT and Claude leaned on directories, review and ranking sites (68% and 65%).
The numbers come from the Houston AI Citation Study: 232 questions about 15 local industries in 8 Greater Houston cities, asked of Google AI Mode and Perplexity on October 30, 2026 and of ChatGPT search and Claude on October 31. Below: sources by engine, the directories that matter, the pages of your own site that get cited, and what to do.
03
Data guide
Four engines
01 / By engine
Where each engine’s citations went.
“Who is the best” questions only. Each engine attaches sources differently, so compare the shares within a column first.
| Measure | Google AI Mode | Perplexity | ChatGPT | Claude |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citations to Google Business Profiles | 79% | 0% | 0.2% | 0% |
| Citations to business websites | 5.3% | 49% | 23% | 29% |
| Citations to directories, review and ranking sites | 9.3% | 45% | 68% | 65% |
| Picks backed by the business’s own website | 7.1% | 38% | 14% | 15% |
| Same top pick when asked again | not tested | 82% | 36% | 56% |
ChatGPT search ran on gpt-5-nano and Claude on Claude Haiku 5.5, through their web search APIs, located in Houston. “Same top pick when asked again” compares two runs about 6 to 10 minutes apart.
02 / Directories
Which directories each engine reads.
- 01
Claude: Yelp first. Yelp appeared in 88 of Claude’s 120 “best” answers and made up 20% of all its citations. 67% of its citations on those questions were “best of” or “top 10” pages.
- 02
ChatGPT: never Yelp. ChatGPT cited Yelp zero times. Its most-cited sources were BestProsInTown (69 citations) and Birdeye (48), and 29% of its citations on “best” questions were ranking pages.
- 03
Perplexity: the business’s site, then directories. It backed 38% of its picks with the business’s own website. The other 60% rested only on third-party pages such as Yelp, Zocdoc, Best Lawyers or HAR.com.
- 04
Google AI Mode: its own Business Profiles. 96% of the businesses it recommended came straight from Google Business Profiles; in 101 of 108 answers with picks, every business came from a Business Profile card.
Specialist directories such as Zocdoc (doctors and dentists), HAR.com (Houston real estate) and Best Lawyers appear alongside the general ones, so the list that matters depends on your trade as well as the engine.
03 / Your own site
Which of your own pages get cited.
When engines cite a business’s own website, they cite specific pages, mostly about a place or a price.
| Measure | Share of cited business pages |
|---|---|
| City and location pages | 40% |
| Homepages | 21% |
| Service pages | 16% |
| Pricing pages | 14% |
- 01
Name the city. For “who is the best” questions, 80% of cited business pages named the city in the URL or title, and 61% named it in the H1.
- 02
Publish prices. On cost questions, 41% of the business pages AI Mode cited were pricing or cost pages, and booking pages with public prices (Square, Tekmetric, Vetstoria and similar) were cited as often as Business Profiles.
- 03
Write enough to read. The median cited page had 1,235 words readable without JavaScript. Most cited pages also had business schema, but in the factor test it was the specific business type, not schema in general, that carried the signal.
04 / Self-promotion
Do “best of” lists about yourself help?
Not in our data.
Self-ranking posts were rare: 4.2% of the business pages Perplexity cited, and almost none in AI Mode. When a business’s own “best of” post was cited, Perplexity recommended that business 47% of the time, about the same as for businesses whose other pages were cited (45%). Independent ranking pages are a different story for Claude, which drew 67% of its “best” citations from them.
05 / What to do
What to do about it, engine by engine.
Because the engines disagree (79% of business and question pairs were named by only one engine), track and work on each one separately.
- 01
For Google AI Mode: your Business Profile
Complete it, keep categories and hours current, and earn reviews. Its picks had a median 4.9 stars and 323 reviews; for SEO agencies the median was 27 reviews.
Tip: Ask every happy customer within a week of the job, with a direct review link.
- 02
For Perplexity: your city, service and pricing pages
Perplexity is the engine most likely to cite your website, so give each city you serve a real page and publish prices.
Tip: Put the city and service in the title and H1, as most cited pages did.
- 03
For ChatGPT: the directories it reads
Check your profiles on review and directory sites such as Birdeye and the “best pros” lists ChatGPT cited, and correct any wrong name, phone or hours.
Tip: Search your trade and city on those sites to see who is listed and how.
- 04
For Claude: Yelp and ranking pages
Claim and complete your Yelp page, and earn a place on independent “best of” lists from local publications and associations.
Tip: Skip lists that rank yourself first; in our data they gave no edge.
Measure each engine with the same blind questions every month; the AEO guide explains how.
06 / Method
How the numbers were collected.
- 01
Questions: 232 questions about 15 local industries in 8 Greater Houston cities, including “who is the best” and cost questions.
- 02
Engines and dates: Google AI Mode and Perplexity on October 30, 2026; ChatGPT search and Claude with web search, through their APIs and located in Houston, on October 31, twice each.
- 03
Citations: 3,102 in the main AI Mode and Perplexity runs, from 1,034 domains, and 1,688 from ChatGPT and Claude, each coded by source type.
- 04
Data: free under CC BY 4.0 at doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23820175, with the full method on the study page.
08 / Questions
Common questions.
Short answers you can act on.
Which websites does ChatGPT cite for local businesses?
Mostly directories, review and ranking sites: 68% of its citations on Houston “best” questions. Its most-cited sources were BestProsInTown and Birdeye. It cited Yelp zero times in our study.
Does Claude use Yelp?
Heavily. Yelp appeared in 88 of Claude’s 120 “best” answers in our Houston study and made up 20% of all its citations.
Does Google AI Mode use my website?
Rarely for recommendations. 96% of the businesses AI Mode recommended came from Google Business Profiles, and only 7.1% of its picks were backed by the business’s own website.
How do I get my business cited by Perplexity?
Give it pages to cite. Perplexity backed 38% of its picks with the business’s own website, and city, service and pricing pages are the pages engines cite most, so a real page for each city you serve, with prices and reviews, is the best start.
Do “best of” lists help AI recommend my business?
Lists you write about yourself gave no edge in our data. Independent ranking pages matter for Claude, which drew 67% of its “best” citations from “best of” or “top 10” pages.
Why do AI assistants recommend different businesses?
They read different sources. In our study, Google AI Mode and Perplexity named the same first business in only 10 of 108 answers, and 79% of business and question pairs were named by just one of the four engines.
Next / Review
Find out which engines name you.
We’ll ask the questions your customers ask, on each engine, and show you which sources they use for your trade.