When a homeowner asks ChatGPT for a plumber or HVAC contractor, the answer does not come from thin air. It comes from specific web pages that ChatGPT found and chose to reference. Knowing which pages those are changes where a trades business spends its time.
Fresh data from the Cheers Market Baseline, which tracked 9,434 ChatGPT answers to home-services questions across 100 US and Canadian metros between August 31 and September 20, 2026, shows exactly what ChatGPT cites. The short version: it reaches for directories most contractors have never heard of, and barely touches the ones they obsess over.
The directories ChatGPT actually reads
Expertise.com showed up in 32.1% of ChatGPT answers. Angi or HomeAdvisor appeared in 29.4%. BBB came in at 14.5%, and Thumbtack at 5.0%. A long tail of smaller directories and best-of lists, including sites like Three Best Rated and Best Pick Reports, collectively appeared in 59.9% of answers.
Yelp appeared as a cited source in just 0.6% of answers, 52 times out of 9,434. That is a hard pill for contractors who have spent years polishing their Yelp profile, but the data is consistent. ChatGPT reaches for Expertise.com and Angi first when it builds a recommendation for a plumber, HVAC contractor, or electrician.
For more on how ChatGPT builds its local recommendations, see how ChatGPT picks local businesses.
Your website still matters, but not equally
Business websites were cited in 44.2% of ChatGPT answers overall. That number changes by trade. Plumbing answers cited a plumber's own website 53.7% of the time. Roofing answers cited a roofer's site only 17.8% of the time.
The lesson: when ChatGPT cited a contractor's website, it cited the homepage 37.4% of the time, a service page 24.1%, and a page that named both the service and the city 17.4%. Blog posts barely registered at 1.2%.
A contractor needs a homepage, a service page, and a location page that says "plumbing in [city]" or "HVAC repair in [city]" in the title and header. That is what ChatGPT reaches for.
For trades-specific visibility guidance, see AI visibility for plumbers.
Google and Yelp: nearly absent from ChatGPT citations
Google appeared as a cited source in 0.1% of ChatGPT answers. Yelp appeared in 0.6%. Google and Yelp still matter for other reasons, but they are not what ChatGPT reads when it writes its sentence recommending a contractor.
Here is where it gets nuanced. Yelp does show up on ChatGPT's map cards. During a five-day capture in September 2026, 34% of rated business cards on ChatGPT's map linked to Yelp business pages. Yelp feeds the visual card beside the recommendation, even though ChatGPT rarely cites Yelp as a text source.
The two layers of a ChatGPT local answer come from different suppliers. The sentence that names a business comes from editorial, directories, and forum content. The card beside it, with the address and star rating, comes from a licensed business-data feed that may pull from Yelp. Both layers need to be correct for a contractor to show up well.
Perplexity and Gemini cite differently
The same study tracked what Perplexity and Gemini cite. Perplexity cited business websites in 89% of answers and long-tail directories in 81.7%. It cited everything at once. Gemini cited business websites in 88.3% but directories less often.
What this means: a contractor can be visible on ChatGPT and invisible on Perplexity, or the reverse. The directories each engine reads differ enough that checking only one platform gives a false picture. Running the same question across all three reveals where a business shows up and where it does not.
For the broader gap between AI visibility and traditional search, see ChatGPT recommends 1% of local businesses.
What a trades business should do this week
- Get listed on Expertise.com. It is the most-cited directory in ChatGPT home-services answers. Expertise.com selects most businesses through its own research, but contractors in the Home Improvement category can request a review at expertise.com/review-me. There is a free Provider Portal for managing listings once published.
- Claim or update your Angi listing. A basic Angi listing is free. Lead access costs $15 to $100 per lead plus an annual fee around $300, according to Angi's own pricing. But the free listing gives ChatGPT a page to cite, which is the part that matters for AI visibility.
- Check BBB. It appeared in 14.5% of ChatGPT answers. A free BBB profile is worth the 15 minutes it takes to set up.
- Build a service-plus-city page on your website. Not a blog post. A page titled "Plumbing Repair in [City], [State]" or "HVAC Installation in [County]" with clear service descriptions, service area, and contact information. That is the page ChatGPT reaches for when it cites a contractor's site.
- Check your NAP consistency. Name, address, and phone number must match across every directory, your website, and your Google Business Profile. ChatGPT hedges when sources disagree, and hedging means it does not recommend you.
- Run the same question on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Ask "who is the best [trade] in [city]" on all three. Save what comes back. That is your baseline. Compare it monthly to see whether your visibility is improving.
For a deeper dive into which directories ChatGPT reads, see which directories ChatGPT reads when recommending contractors.
The bottom line for trades businesses
ChatGPT does not read Yelp the way most contractors think it does. It reads Expertise.com, Angi, BBB, and the contractor's own website. The contractors who show up in AI answers are the ones whose information is correct and specific on those sources.
A plumber with a strong Expertise.com listing, a claimed Angi profile, a free BBB page, and a service page that names their city is ahead of a competitor with 500 Yelp reviews and none of the above.
Ready to see where your business stands in AI search? Run your free AI visibility audit at FirstCall Visibility.