How to appear in ChatGPT for a local search?
Published on
By being present where ChatGPT looks: on your own website, in your industry directories and platforms, and under your name. In our local searches conducted in France on September 16, 2026, ChatGPT cited local business websites for almost all professions, accounting for 29% of its citations, directories and platforms for 31%, and national networks for 24%. The business pages it cited featured the city name in their title in 77% of cases. And to find these businesses, ChatGPT often started with a directory and then searched for each one by name.
For what type of question? It all depends on the profession and the AI. For a restaurant, guides and local media carry significant weight; for a dentist, appointment platforms; for a craftsman, directories of certified professionals. And Gemini relies much more than ChatGPT on directories.
What the three AIs cite in a local search
We asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, via their API with web search, real local questions, specifying a profession and a city each time: plumber in Périgueux, Italian restaurant in Lyon, accountant in Rennes, garage in Angers, dentist in Tours, real estate agency in Annecy, electric bike repair in Bordeaux, electrician in Quimper. We then classified each cited source, directories based on a list written before the collection, and the rest manually.
For ChatGPT, local business websites accounted for 29% of citations, directories and platforms 31%, national networks and their agency pages 24%, and official sources 13%. Claude cited local businesses more, 43%, and platforms, 37%. Gemini relied primarily on directories and platforms, representing 48% of its sources, led by PagesJaunes, compared to 25% for local business websites. None of the three cited Google Maps or a Google listing.
The path of ChatGPT: the directory, then the name
ChatGPT does not just search for 'electrician Quimper'. On this question, it queried directories of certified professionals, noted business names, and then launched a search for each business using its name, city, and words like 'reviews', 'address', or 'official website'. The city appeared in 89% of its searches for our local questions, and it targeted platforms like Doctolib or the Guide Michelin directly when appropriate for the profession.
This path explains two conditions. A business that is absent from the directories where ChatGPT gathers names is unlikely to be searched for. And a business whose name does not lead to a clear website stating its profession, city, and contact details is unlikely to be cited once searched. ChatGPT will search for sources whose name it knows, locally as well as elsewhere.
Each profession has its platforms
The cited sources change with the profession. For the Italian restaurant in Lyon, the AIs cited the Guide Michelin, Gault & Millau, PagesJaunes, and local media like Le Bonbon or Le Petit Paumé. For the dentist in Tours, Doctolib and appointment scheduling platforms. For the real estate agency in Annecy, MeilleursAgents, agency comparison sites, and local pages of major networks. For the garages in Angers, quote platforms like iDGARAGES or Vroomly.
ChatGPT also frequently adds official sources to its local response: Service Public regarding water damage insurance for a leak, Qualifelec and Légifrance for electrical installations. It answers the question 'who to call', but also 'how to choose well': a business page that explains these rules for its profession and its city answers both.
What American studies show
BrightLocal noted in November 2024, during manual local searches in ChatGPT in the United States, that 58% of the sources were business websites, 27% business mentions, and 15% directories. Since then, OpenAI signed an agreement with Yelp in July 2026 for its local responses, and in August 2026 Steady Demand measured a Yelp link on 95.83% of the business listings displayed by ChatGPT in the United States.
These studies read the ChatGPT application, which displays listings and maps; we read the API, which returns web sources. Both converge on one point: the business website remains a major source. They diverge on directories, whose weight depends on the country, the period, and the measured scope.
What this changes for a local business
Give your site one page per main profession that names the city in its title and text, with your contact details, your service area, and what sets you apart. Sign up for the directories and platforms that AIs consult for your profession: PagesJaunes for everyone, qualification directories for craftspeople, Doctolib for healthcare, and guides for restaurants. Make sure your name, address, and phone number are identical everywhere.
Finally, allow AI search bots to crawl your site, and check what each AI actually answers to your customers' questions in your city. The three AIs do not cite the same sources: a company present in Claude may be absent in Gemini, which relies more heavily on directories.
What we do not know
Our measurement covers one question per profession and per French city, via the models' API, on September 16, 2026: the ChatGPT application, with its maps and business listings, may behave differently. The classification of sources into local business, platform, network, or institution was done by hand after data collection. We did not measure the effect of directory registration on citations.
Sources
- BrightLocal, Sammy Paget — sources of local search in ChatGPT, .
- Search Engine Land, Danny Goodwin — agreement between OpenAI and Yelp, .
- Steady Demand, Ben Fisher — sources of ChatGPT local results, .
- FaireDuBruit measurements, from September 4 to 16, 2026 — see "How we measured".