First, make sure it is a pattern
One answer is one sample. Ask the same customer-style question several times, in fresh chats, on different days, and in more than one assistant. If the competitor appears in most runs and you appear in few or none, you have something worth investigating. If it flips back and forth, you are looking at normal variation.
Read what the answer was built from
- 01Copy the answer word for word, including any source links or footnotes.
- 02Open every cited page. Note whether it is the competitor’s own site, a directory, a review site, a local article or a “best of” list.
- 03Check whether you appear on the same page. If a local list names them and not you, that list is part of the reason.
- 04Note the exact words the answer uses to justify the choice, such as “offers same-day appointments” or “specialises in commercial roofing”. Those words came from somewhere.
Compare like for like
None of this means the competitor is better at the work. It means they are easier to cite for that question.
- Service pages: do they have a page for the exact service in the question while you only mention it in a list?
- Location: does their site name the city or neighbourhood in the question, as text, while yours only shows a map?
- Listings: is their business profile complete, with the right primary category, while yours has an old phone number or missing hours?
- Third-party mentions: are they in the local paper, a trade association’s member list or a neighbourhood guide where you are absent?
- Review text: do their reviews describe the specific service someone asked about?
Close the gaps you can honestly close
Fix the things that are plainly missing or wrong on your side first: a clear page for each main service and area, matching listings, and accurate hours. Then work on the slower part, real mentions from other sites, by doing the things that earn them, such as joining your local association, supporting a community event, or giving a local journalist useful facts.
Do not copy the competitor’s text, post fake reviews of them or of yourself, or claim awards you do not hold. Beyond being wrong, assistants repeat what they find, and false claims tend to be found out.
Questions
Is the competitor paying to be recommended?
You cannot tell from one answer, and as of this writing the mainstream assistants do not sell placement inside their organic recommendations. Some are testing clearly labelled ads, so check whether the mention was marked as sponsored.
How do I know which sources matter most?
Look for pages that keep getting cited across different questions and runs. A directory or article that shows up again and again is worth more of your attention than one that appears once.
Can the free scan show who is named instead of me?
Yes. It lists every business named in the five replies and the pages cited, so you can see which competitors come up and from which sources. It is one sample, so re-check before drawing conclusions.
Check what AI says about your business
The free scan asks five customer-style questions with live web search and shows every reply word for word, who was named, and which pages were cited. About a minute, no card.
Run my free scan