Found on Google. Missing from ChatGPT?

By Victoria Barton · Updated 11 November 2026

You search for your business on Google and there it is. That’s reassuring. But what happens when someone asks ChatGPT to recommend a business like yours?

A Google result is a link someone can select to visit a page. A ChatGPT recommendation is an answer suggesting a business to use. Seeing your website in one place does not prove it will appear in the other.

1. Prepare a question a customer could ask

Think of a customer who has never heard of your business. They might ask “Who can help me with bookkeeping in Bristol?” They have a problem to solve, but do not yet know who to hire.

Use your service and the place you serve in that question. Leave your business name out, because naming it gives ChatGPT a clue the customer would not have. If you work online, describe who you help and the country you serve instead of inventing a local office.

Set up a fairer ChatGPT check

If you have already discussed your business with ChatGPT, it may use those details in its answer. That could give you a different result from someone who has never mentioned you. Use a Temporary Chat and choose Unpersonalized before asking your question. This avoids using saved information about you to tailor that answer.

Temporary Chat is a separate conversation. Selecting Temporary alone is not enough if it is set to Personalized. Use the guide below for the buttons to select, an example question and how to keep the answer before you leave.

Follow the step-by-step ChatGPT check

2. Check the answer and its links

Look for your business name. Then read the sentence around it. Is ChatGPT suggesting someone should use you, or merely mentioning you? Check whether it includes a clickable link to your website too. These are 3 separate things.

Select any website links or Sources button shown beside or below the answer. A source is a page the answer refers to. Open it and check what it actually says. For example, does the page describe the service and place you asked about? If there are no links, do not guess where the information came from.

3. Make your own pages clear

Google says the same basic website advice applies to its AI answers: useful pages, clear information and content it can read.

Open your home page, service page and contact page. Look for a plain description of what you do, where you work, the current price if you publish one, and how to book. If a detail is missing or wrong, edit it in your website editor or send the correction to the person who manages the site.

4. Keep the answer and try again

Before leaving the test chat, copy its answer into a separate regular chat with the question and date. Ask AI to put the results into a table. Repeat the same question in a fresh test chat on another day. Use the same place and settings so you can make a useful comparison.

Read Google’s advice

My business shows up in Gemini but not ChatGPT. What does that tell me?

Gemini is Google’s AI assistant; ChatGPT is OpenAI’s. They can produce different answers. A result from one does not tell you what the other will say. Compare the same wording and place name, and record whether each tool searched the web. Follow each tool’s own settings instructions.

Paste the saved answers into a separate chat and ask: “Make a table from these answers. My business is [name]. For each answer, list the AI tool, date, exact question, whether my business is named, whether it is recommended, and whether my website is linked. Write ‘not recorded’ for missing details. Do not guess.” Check the table against the answers you pasted.

Want me to check your business?

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