Check How Local Search and AI Describe Your Business

Start a local visibility review with the details that determine whether someone can use your business: where it is, what it does, when it is available, and how to contact it. Check those facts across the website, business listings, and the answers you are investigating.

You do not need to assume that an assistant has replaced local search to justify this work. A wrong closing time is worth correcting wherever it appears.

Keep the documented local factors in view

Google describes local ranking in terms of relevance, distance, and prominence. It recommends complete, accurate business information and current hours. Distance remains part of the explanation; a clearer description does not remove geography from the decision. Google’s local ranking guidance, checked September 13, 2026.

OpenAI also documents location as an input to ChatGPT search. Approximate location can come from the connection, while device location sharing is optional. A local result therefore needs to be read with its location context. ChatGPT search documentation, checked September 13, 2026.

These documents describe different products. Neither gives you a universal formula for local assistant recommendations. Use them to design a check you can interpret.

Choose questions a customer would ask

Begin with the services that justify a visit or an inquiry. For an illustrative bicycle repair shop, useful questions could include finding puncture repair nearby, checking whether an appointment is required, and asking whether the shop services a particular type of bike.

Include a location explicitly in one version of each question. If you also test “near me,” record the location the answer appears to use. Otherwise, a result from a different town may look like a visibility failure.

Run the questions on the surfaces your customers mention. Save the date, wording, response, and linked sources. Distinguish a business being absent from an answer that lists the wrong area or misunderstands the service requested.

Compare the facts people need to act

Review the same details on each relevant page:

• Trading name and the correct website.
• Address for customer visits, where applicable.
• Service area for work delivered at the customer’s location.
• Current hours, including exceptions.
• Services offered and significant exclusions.
• Contact, booking, and arrival instructions.

Treat this as a consistency check, not an invitation to publish information that should remain private. A service business without a public customer location needs a clear service area and contact process, not an invented storefront.

Click through the whole booking path. The service page may be accurate while the booking tool offers an old location or an unavailable appointment type. Check the confirmation instructions too, if you control them.

Give the website a useful role

A location page should help someone decide whether to visit or get in touch. Include the details that change that decision: access, appointment requirements, service limitations, and what to bring.

Use concrete information. “Repairs while you wait” needs conditions if it applies only to simple jobs. “Open weekends” is less helpful than the actual days and hours. Avoid claims about facilities you have not confirmed.

For multiple locations, make the differences clear. If only one branch offers a service, say where it is available and link to that branch. Do not fill separate pages with interchangeable descriptions that leave the reader guessing.

Correct the source of a wrong answer

When an assistant gives an incorrect detail, open the sources it cites. A stale directory entry, an old page, and an unsupported statement call for different responses.

Update pages you control and request a specific correction from other publishers where you have evidence. Save the date and the corrected wording. The guide to fixing wrong business descriptions explains that investigation.

A negative opinion is not the same as a wrong fact. Respond to the underlying customer issue where appropriate; do not label an unfavorable review inaccurate solely because it hurts the business.

Keep a record you can use next month

Repeat the same questions after making corrections, with the location and search mode recorded. Report which sources changed and which answers still need attention.

Keep visits, calls, bookings, and inquiries beside the answer checks, without assuming one caused another. The immediate deliverable is a verified set of local facts and a list of unresolved errors. That gives the next review a clear starting point.