How we check ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews

ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity are each asked one question per keyword: What is the best [keyword]? Claude’s carries one more line, and Claude is asked it a second time when it answered without searching (see below). The keyword goes in exactly as the agency entered it for the property. For the keyword “emergency plumber leeds”, the question is “What is the best emergency plumber leeds?”

We do not add the town or the business name. A keyword that should be local needs its town in it, the way people type it. The three services are given the country of the property’s address (the United Kingdom for UK clients) as an approximate location, never the town. Google’s results, by contrast, are collected for a location: the place in DataForSEO’s location list whose name best matches the client’s town, or the whole country when none matches.

For ChatGPT and Claude, an answer given without a web search cannot cite anyone, because their sources are the pages their searches find. ChatGPT is required to search: the request tells OpenAI’s API that it must use its web search tool. If OpenAI refuses that setting, the question is asked again without it, and so are ChatGPT’s later questions until our scanner restarts; ChatGPT may then answer without searching. Claude is asked instead: its question carries one more line, Search the web before you answer. When Claude still answers without searching, the same question is asked once more, and that second answer is the one recorded, whether it searched or not (if the second request fails, the first answer is kept).

The words around the keyword are always in English. Each question is a fresh request with no conversation before it and no memory of earlier questions.

A keyword counts as cited by a service when one of the sources that service attached to its answer is on the client’s website or, for ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, is the client’s listing on Google Maps. We do not read the answer’s text: a business that appears in the text without such a link counts as not cited.

For a website, the match is made on the host name of each source’s web address. We lower-case it, remove a leading “www.”, ignore the port and the path, and compare it with the host name of the website the agency entered for the property, treated the same way. The two must be the same: a page on example.co.uk counts for example.co.uk, a page on shop.example.co.uk does not, and neither does a link to the client’s Facebook page or a directory listing.

For ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, a link to the website listed on the client’s Google Business Profile also counts, when that is a different address of the client’s own (not a page on a shared site such as Facebook, Instagram, Yell or a directory), the property is linked to its Google Business Profile and map tracking is on. For Google AI Overviews only the property’s own website counts.

For ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, a link to the client’s Google Business Profile listing on Google Maps also counts as a citation, because, in our checks since late August 2026, the links ChatGPT attaches to its answers through the API have been Google Maps listings rather than websites. The link must be a Google Maps search or place link (on google.com or google.co.uk, or a subdomain such as www., with a path that starts /maps/search/ or /maps/place/) that carries the business’s name: the listing name in the link must be the same as the name on the client’s Google Business Profile when the property is linked to it and map tracking is on, otherwise the business name entered for the property. Capitals, accents, punctuation and one closing Ltd, Limited, LLP, PLC, GmbH or Inc are ignored, and the whole name must match, never only part of it. A link without an address, or for a property with no town, is matched on the name alone, unless the name is a single word (see below). When the link also gives an address and the property has a town, the town must appear in the address’s own town part, one of its last two comma-separated parts, alone or with its postcode (“Leeds” or “Leeds LS2 7EQ”), never only as part of a longer name such as a street: “Leeds Road, Bradford” does not count for a Leeds client, and neither does a business with the same name in another town. A link that gives the town only earlier in the address, before both a county and a country part (“Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK”), is not counted either, even when it is the client’s own listing. A business whose name is a single word (Smith, or Smith Ltd) is never matched on its name alone: the property must have a town, the link must give an address that passes that town check, and the part right after the name must carry a number (a house or unit number, or a postcode) or be the town itself, so “Smith, Jones & Co, Leeds” does not count for a client called Smith. Other Google links, such as a link to a Google search, do not count.

The position is where the first link to the client’s website or Google Maps listing falls among the distinct sources attached to the answer or the AI Overview, counted in order from 1. A source linked more than once takes one place. So “Cited #1” means the first source attached was the client’s site or listing. For ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity we also keep the address of that page.