{"id":8204,"date":"2025-08-26T09:05:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/?p=8204"},"modified":"2025-09-15T04:10:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:10:41","slug":"want-to-rank-in-chatgpt-focus-on-these-review-sites-new-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/want-to-rank-in-chatgpt-focus-on-these-review-sites-new-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Rank in ChatGPT? Focus on These Review Sites (New Research)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How do you build a local business reputation that is likely to result in your brand being shown as a ChatGPT response, like the ones shown above? We\u2019ve been investigating this at Whitespark and have data to share with you today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Premise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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When we follow up our query for local business results with a question about why ChatGPT recommended these specific companies, the first thing it tells us is that these inclusions are based on reviews<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft is a major partner and investor in OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT conversational AI chatbot. ChatGPT uses Bing\u2019s data, and though its chatbot is confused and contradictory as to whether it is using Bing Places\/Maps data<\/a>, recent studies like this one from Joe Youngblood<\/a> theorize that having a Bing Places listing and a good aggregate rating across multiple review platforms could influence ChatGPT inclusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this, we wanted to do an up-to-date check-in on the review platforms Bing Places is currently preferencing in its results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nota Bene<\/em>: If you ask ChatGPT, it will tell you reviews are an important factor (but of course, you should always be a little skeptical about anything an AI chat tells you). Still, it stands to reason that diversifying reviews across the sites that ChatGPT is referencing would likely be beneficial for ChatGPT visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methodology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We pulled data for 17 local business categories across 9 major US cities (none of which we were physically located in), running a total of 153 queries. We looked at the first page of Bing Places results for each query and documented the review sources associated with each listing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data: Which review sources are most frequently used by Bing Places?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are clear winners when we look at the total frequency of occurrences across all the cities and categories we investigated. Here are the platforms on which the businesses in our study have earned the most reviews:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top Overall Bing Places Review Sources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n \n \n \n \n <\/colgroup>\n <\/table>\n \n \n \n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook is running away with the game when it comes to Bing Places review sources, appearing on nearly one and a half times as many businesses as the next biggest platform: Yelp. We found this interesting because Yelp tends to be the first review site that comes to mind when we think of where Bing Places pulls its reviews from. Yelp, in turn, has more than twice the number of occurrences than the next biggest platform, which is Trip Advisor. Porch, Yellowpages, and Angi have a notable presence, but everything after that is a mere smattering when we\u2019re talking about overall averages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up:<\/em> Let\u2019s see if the narrative changes when we drill down by category. Here, we\u2019ll look at the top 3 review sources for each category and provide the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top 3 Review Sources By Category<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n \n \n \n \n \n <\/colgroup>\n <\/table>\n \n \n \n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook comes out again as the frontrunner Bing Places review source, being the biggest player in the 10\/18 categories we investigated. Yelp is the runner-up with 5\/18 first places, but as we can see, platform dominance definitely varies by category. For example, Trip Advisor is a more important source for bakeries and sushi restaurants, while Porch leads the pack for garage door repair. Your takeaway is that you should be investigating and focusing on the dominant review platforms for your category, based on your own survey of Bing Places results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up<\/em>: let\u2019s see if this pattern of review platform dominance varies by city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Review Platform Dominance By City<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n \n \n \n <\/colgroup>\n <\/table>\n \n \n \n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this point in the study, we were no longer surprised to see that in all but one city (Los Angeles), Facebook is beating out Yelp as the dominant source of local business reviews in Bing Places, when taken in average across all the categories we investigated. Your task is to identify the review platform comfort zone of the local community you serve to understand where you have the best chance of receiving reviews. Study your own Bing Places listing and the listings of your nearby competitors to discover the best fit for your brand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notable players you might have overlooked<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, your brand should be getting Facebook and Yelp reviews. That\u2019s no surprise. But, depending on your category, you may want to look at other prominent sites such as TripAdvisor, Yellowpages, Porch, and Angi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to ChatGPT, could the training data picture change?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yes! There\u2019s been considerable SEO industry buzz about an alleged strained relationship between Microsoft and Open AI<\/a>, and we\u2019d like to quote Greg Sterling\u2019s NearMemo<\/a> on a development you should be tuned into:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u275d ChatGPT has historically used Bing for web search, and Bing Places to power its local results, though not exclusively. But Aleyda Solis <\/em>points to<\/em><\/a> a blog post by French SEO Alexis Rylko, <\/em>who argues<\/em><\/a> that ChatGPT is now using Google instead of Bing. If true, this would be a significant development with major implications for local.<\/em> \u275e<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can follow those links to see the study in question. Right now, we\u2019re not seeing Google Business Profile results in ChatGPT (and neither is Greg Sterling) but we recommend continuing to follow this story on where ChatGPT is sourcing its data. Our take is that there is no firm industry consensus on this topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief but necessary digression<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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We can\u2019t publish a study about conversational AI without including a proviso. As you can see, the above screenshot shows a map that ChatGPT generated when I queried it about plumbers in Seattle. However, when I asked the chatbot to explain to me to disclose the source of this map to me, it replied: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We have now repeatedly run into this weird messaging from ChatGPT, in which it is insisting that it is not showing a map. We\u2019d like to know the source of the map in case it would provide useful clues as to the degree to which ChatGPT is training on Bing vs. Google local data. However, what we really get from this exercise is a warning: AI should not be seen as an authoritative expert on its own sources or outputs. We strongly advise you to be wary of any articles which are using AI as their source of answers. Does anyone want a future in which we are citing AI about AI? *Chills*. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your takeaways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Facebook and Yelp have turned out to be huge players in the Bing Places index when it comes to reviews. Given Microsoft\u2019s relationship with OpenAI (at least at the moment), we recommend that you expand beyond Google Business Profile reviews to build up your reputation on whichever review sources are being pulled in most frequently in the Bing Places results for your city and industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the larger takeaway here requires taking a step back from the finer details to look at the fact that, suddenly, our industry is talking about Bing again after a big sleep of 10+ years. Microsoft\u2019s business decision have brought it back into the conversation. How many of us would\u2019ve predicted this even three years ago?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this, we highly suggest that you reboot your neglected Bing Places listings, or create new ones for any neglected locations. Need a tutorial to refresh your memory and understand current best practices? Read Whitespark\u2019s Ultimate Guide to Your Bing Places Listing<\/a>. Need help building out your citations across the majors? Whitespark is at your service<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do you build a local business reputation that is likely to result in your brand being shown as a ChatGPT response, like the ones shown above? We\u2019ve been investigating this at Whitespark and have data to share with you today. Premise When we follow up our query for local business results with a question […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"How to Rank in ChatGPT: Focus on These Review Sites (New Research)","_seopress_titles_desc":"Ever heard of the review platforms Angi and Porch? You might want to get acquainted if you want your local business to be recommended by ChatGPT.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"classification":[37],"class_list":["post-8204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","classification-guide"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8204"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8737,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8204\/revisions\/8737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8204"},{"taxonomy":"classification","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/classification?post=8204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}