What gets a home service website cited by AI?
In our data: depth and real guides. Across 39 home service websites we built or manage (35 with a readable sitemap for the page-based checks), compared against Bing's AI citation data (Aug–Nov 2026):
- Sites with guide, resource or blog pages: median 45.5 AI citations vs 11 without. 13 of 14 were cited at least once.
- Sites with 50+ pages: median 38 vs 12. 17 of 18 were cited.
Two common recommendations didn't show up in the data:
- FAQ schema on the homepage: median 15 with it vs 55 without.
- Homepages with 2,000+ words: median 6 vs 45.5.
By Justin Hubbard, who runs Adimize and has owned and operated a junk removal and dumpster rental company for over 12 years
Based on 39 home service websites we built or manage, crawled Nov 11, 2026, with Bing Webmaster Tools AI citations, Aug 11 - Nov 10, 2026
AI citations by what the site has
| What the site has | Sites with it | Sites without it |
|---|---|---|
| Has guide, resource or blog pages | Median 45.5 citations · 13 of 14 cited | Median 11 citations · 15 of 21 cited |
| 50 or more pages | Median 38 citations · 17 of 18 cited | Median 12 citations · 11 of 17 cited |
| Has an llms.txt file | Median 45 citations · 16 of 21 cited | Median 22.5 citations · 15 of 18 cited |
| FAQ schema on homepage | Median 15 citations · 19 of 26 cited | Median 55 citations · 12 of 13 cited |
| Homepage 2,000+ words | Median 6 citations · 9 of 13 cited | Median 45.5 citations · 19 of 22 cited |
| Has town or service-area pages | Median 19 citations · 16 of 21 cited | Median 45.5 citations · 12 of 14 cited |
How big the sites are
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Sites crawled | 39 |
| Sites with a readable sitemap | 35 |
| Median pages per site (sitemap sites) | 51 |
| Fewest to most pages | 3 to 376 |
What the numbers say
AI tools cite pages that answer a specific question. That matches our study of which pages get cited, where local guides earned more AI citations than any other page type.
Town pages didn't line up with more citations here. Sites with town or service-area pages had a lower median (19 citations vs 45.5 without). More town pages isn't the play; better guides are.
FAQ schema and long homepages aren't magic. This is correlation, so we wouldn't rip them out over it, but the data doesn't show them driving citations.
Sites with an llms.txt file had a median 45 citations vs 22.5 without. That's likely because the newer, deeper builds tend to ship with one. Don't buy llms.txt as a fix on its own. Justin said the same in his Oct 11 newsletter.
This is correlation across 39 real businesses, not cause. Sites differ in age, market size and reviews. And copying the pattern is real work: a guide worth citing means researching each town's rules, fees and dump sites, writing it up properly and keeping it current. That's how we approach website builds and AI search work.
How we got this
- We crawled 39 home service websites we built or manage on Nov 11, 2026. We checked each one for guide, resource or blog pages, town or service-area pages, an llms.txt file, FAQ schema on the homepage, homepage word count and total page count.
- Page counts come from each site's sitemap. 35 of the 39 had a readable one. Four of the six rows cover those 35 sites; the llms.txt and FAQ schema rows cover all 39.
- Citations come from Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report, Aug 11 to Nov 10, 2026. It counts citations in Microsoft's AI answers. It doesn't cover every AI assistant, and it doesn't show clicks.
- "Median citations" is the middle site in each group. "Cited" means at least one AI citation in the window.
- Correlation, not cause. Sites differ in age, market size and reviews. Newer builds tend to have llms.txt and more pages.
FAQ
How many pages should a home service website have?
There's no magic number. In this group, the median site had 51 pages, across the 35 sites with a readable sitemap (range 3 to 376). 17 of 18 sites with 50+ pages were cited at least once, vs 11 of 17 with fewer. The bigger gap in median citations was guide pages that answer real questions: 45.5 citations vs 11.
Does llms.txt get you into ChatGPT?
This data can't show that: it's Bing's AI citations, not ChatGPT. Sites with an llms.txt file had a higher median (45 vs 22.5 citations), though a slightly smaller share were cited at all (16 of 21 vs 15 of 18). That's likely because the newer, deeper builds tend to ship with one. Treat it as a small extra, not the fix.
Related questions
Related reading
From the Desk of Justin Hubbard
One move a week, every Sunday.
Short, useful, written from inside a $2M home service company. Read by 2,000+ service business owners.