The short answer
When ChatGPT and Claude recommend a local business, they read a handful of websites first, and the two assistants read very different ones. Across our 936 Sydney answers (as of 29 October 2026), Word of Mouth appeared in 58%, Reddit in 49%, Fresha in 46%, Wikipedia in 43% and Yelp in 44%, but ChatGPT did almost all the Reddit reading and Claude did all the Yelp reading.
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, three everyday questions (for example “What’s the best barber in Newtown?”) for 156 trade-and-suburb combinations in Sydney, 936 answers in all (as of 29 October 2026), and stored every answer, every business named and every website each assistant read.
The reading list, by assistant
Share of answers in which the assistant read or cited the site.
| Website | All answers | ChatGPT | Claude |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word of Mouth | 58% | 68% | 47% |
| 49% | 98% | 0% | |
| Fresha | 46% | 42% | 51% |
| Wikipedia | 43% | 79% | 6% |
| Yelp | 44% | 0% | 87% |
| Birdeye reviews | 35% | 66% | 4% |
| Right for Me | 20% | 41% | 0% |
| StarWorks | 20% | 38% | 3% |
| Local Australia | 20% | 39% | 1% |
| Time Out | 11% | 12% | 11% |
What to do with this
- Pick the sites for your trade first. Salons, barbers and beauty: Fresha (read in 89 to 94% of answers for those trades) and Word of Mouth. Cafés: Tripadvisor (88%). Plumbers: Word of Mouth (76%) and hipages (49%). Gyms: ClassPass (36%) and review pages.
- Then cover both assistants. Yelp for Claude; Birdeye reviews and Word of Mouth for ChatGPT. ChatGPT also 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.
- Make each profile complete and consistent. The assistants quote what the page says. Fill in services, suburb and hours in words.
- Check which pages were read for your suburb. The free check shows the websites used in the six answers about your trade and suburb, so you can start with the ones that count where you are.
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.