The short answer
When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude for the best plumber in a Sydney suburb, the assistants read Word of Mouth first (read in 76% of plumber answers, 97% of ChatGPT’s) and name only a few businesses: ChatGPT 2.5 per answer, Claude 7.0. If you are on the pages they read, with your suburb and services in words, you can be one of them.
How we measured it: between 27 October 2026 and 29 October 2026 we asked OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s own models (the ones behind ChatGPT and Claude), with web search on, for the best plumber in 25 suburb areas in Sydney (as of 29 October 2026), six answers each, and recorded every website the assistants read.
Four steps
- Be on Word of Mouth, complete. Services, suburb, hours and a plain description. Read in 76% of plumber answers, 97% of ChatGPT’s.
- Cover both assistants. Claude read Yelp in most of its answers, so a complete Yelp listing gives Claude a place to find you. ChatGPT reads Reddit threads where locals recommend businesses. You can’t list yourself there, and posting fake recommendations breaks Reddit’s rules. What helps is real customers mentioning you.
- Match your details everywhere. The same name, address and phone on Google, your website and each listing. The assistants match businesses by these.
- Check your suburb, then re-check. 12 different plumbers typically came up across the six answers for one suburb, and the names move. The free check shows where you stand today.
None of this guarantees a recommendation. The assistants decide, and their answers change from day to day. These steps make you easier to find and to describe, which is the part you control.
Websites read for plumbers
Share of the six answers per suburb in which an assistant read the site, across all our suburbs for this trade.
| Website | Answers |
|---|---|
| Word of Mouth | 76% |
| Wikipedia (for the suburb) | 53% |
| Reddit (ChatGPT only) | 50% |
| hipages (ChatGPT only) | 49% |
| Airtasker (mostly Claude) | 42% |
Real examples from our answers
These are businesses the assistants recommended in our October check, shown with their real counts: Plumbwell Plumbing Services in Marrickville was recommended in 6 of 6 answers; Penrith City Plumbing Services in Penrith in 5 of 6. We name a business only where it was recommended, and never for health trades.