Comparing your options
Checking ChatGPT yourself or getting a 50-question check: what does each tell a shop owner?
Asking ChatGPT once on your phone tells you who came up in that single chat, on that one assistant, for that exact wording. Asking 50 homeowner questions across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini shows your actual share of the calls and what the winning shops have on their pages.
Updated 14 November 2026
Plenty of shop owners pull out their phone, type "best plumber in Round Rock" into ChatGPT, and look to see if their company name pops up. It is a sensible first move.
The trouble is that one answer on one tool looks solid on your screen, even when the next homeowner ten minutes later gets a completely different list. Here is how to run a proper check yourself, what a quick check misses, and what changes when you look at 50 answers across all three tools.
How to check your own shop the right way
If you have a quiet afternoon and want to test your town at your kitchen table, you do not need us. We wrote a full step-by-step guide on how to check if ChatGPT recommends you, and the short version comes down to five rules:
- Open a private browser window and log out. If you stay logged in, your past chats can steer the answer. You want to see what a stranger sees.
- Write 4 or 5 full homeowner questions. Skip two-word searches like "plumber near me." Write the job, the town, and the day of the week, the way a homeowner talks when something breaks.
- Test all three assistants in fresh chats. Check ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google Gemini, starting a brand-new chat every single time so the previous answer does not taint the next one.
- Keep a tally on a notepad. Write down which shop was named first, and whether your shop was named anywhere in the answer.
- Click the source links at the bottom. ChatGPT and Perplexity often show the exact web pages they read before answering.
Doing that by hand across three tools takes an afternoon per town. Most owners either stop after two or three tries on their phone, or hand the chore off.
What one check shows vs what 50 asks show
| What you are looking for | Asking ChatGPT once or twice | 50 asks across 3 assistants |
|---|---|---|
| Tools covered | ChatGPT only | ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini |
| Chat history taint | Often logged into your own account | Fresh chat every single ask |
| How it handles changing answers | Shows one roll of the dice | Counts your share of first picks across 50 answers |
| Different homeowner wording | One question style | 5 different questions (by job, day, town and zip code) |
| Why the winners won | Easy to miss the source links | Compares what the named shops have on their pages |
Why a single check on one tool can fool you
When we ran our 13 November Round Rock study (212 usable answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini) and our 200-answer Williamson County run the next day, four things stood out that a quick phone check hides.
1. The three assistants disagree on who goes first
Winning on ChatGPT does not mean you are winning on the other two. For a leaking water heater in Round Rock (151 answers), Perplexity named Plumber A first in 43 of 50 answers (86%). ChatGPT named Plumber C first in 14 of 51 answers (28%). Gemini named Plumber B first in 19 of 50 answers (38%). Meanwhile, Gemini put Perplexity's favourite (Plumber A) first in 0 of 50 answers, and only mentioned them anywhere on the page in 3 of 50 answers.
We saw the same split in Taylor across 50 answers: ChatGPT put one shop first in 11 of its 17 answers, Gemini put a different shop first in 6 of its 16 answers, and Perplexity put a third shop first in 11 of its 17 answers.
2. Changing the question changes the winner
In Round Rock, when we switched from a leaking water heater to a "reliable and fairly priced" plumber for a clogged drain (61 answers), the results shifted completely. Perplexity named the #1 plumber on Google Maps first in 20 of 20 answers, and ChatGPT named that same shop first in 14 of 20 answers. Gemini named that #1 Google Maps shop first only once in 21 answers, sticking with Plumber B in 9 of 21 answers.
3. Zip-code questions can come back empty
If you only test with a zip code on Perplexity, you might think nobody gets recommended in your area. When we asked for a plumber "near 78626", "78634" or "76574" (Georgetown, Hutto and Taylor), Perplexity named no plumber at all in all 9 of those answers. Always test with your town name.
4. Your Google Maps rank does not protect you
In Round Rock, the #2 plumber on Google Maps has 491 reviews. That shop came up in none of the 151 water-heater answers across all three tools. At the same time, Plumber A sits 53rd on Google Maps with 4.1 stars and took 43 of Perplexity's 50 first-place picks. What separated the 11 most-picked shops from 12 never-named Maps leaders was plain facts on their websites: 10 of 11 had the town name in the page title (vs 5 of 12), 8 of 11 explained how they charge (vs 4 of 12), and 5 of 11 showed an actual dollar price (vs 0 of 12). You can see the full breakdown on what AI assistants look for.
Do it yourself, or let us run the 50 asks for free
If you want to run the tally yourself this weekend, use the five steps above and keep a clean sheet of paper.
If you would rather keep your weekend and have the numbers handed to you, ask for our free check. We ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini 50 homeowner questions for your trade and town, count who gets named first and how often, check whether your shop is named, and see what the winning pages share. We email you the report within 5 business days, with no card and no contract. If you want our help after reading it, we build clear pages for your jobs and towns with a booking page or tracked phone line, and you pay per new customer who books through it, never for rankings or monthly reports.
Common questions
Can I really run the full 50-question test myself?
Yes. Open a private browser window, write down five full homeowner questions, and ask them across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini in a brand-new chat each time. It takes a quiet afternoon and a notepad.
Why isn't checking my Google Maps rank enough?
Google Maps rank and stars do not carry over. In our Round Rock test, the #2 plumber on Google Maps with 491 reviews came up in none of the 151 water-heater answers across all three tools, while a shop sitting 53rd on Maps with 4.1 stars was named first in 43 of Perplexity's 50 answers.
What happens after you email me the free report?
You read it and decide if you want help. If you do, we build a clear page for each job and town you work in, connected to a booking page or tracked phone line. You pay per new customer who books through it, never for rankings or monthly reports.