The AI referral engine you're ignoring (it's not Google)

Last week I copied all my search console properties over to Bing Webmaster Tools. By the end of this email you'll know why I did it and whether you should too.

Semrush just published a study comparing ChatGPT and Google AI Mode — the two AI tools your customers are increasingly asking instead of googling "[service] near me." They analyzed 126 million US AI search prompts over six months to see which brands get named, and more importantly, which sources the AI trusts when it makes a recommendation.

Now, the study tracks big national brands like PayPal, Amazon, Zillow. Nobody's tracking "Stamford dumpster rental" in there. But the mechanics of how these tools decide who to recommend? Those apply to every single one of us. And a few of the findings should change what you do this quarter.

The finding that matters most: being known ≠ being recommended

Here's the wild one. Disney gets mentioned 820,000 times in ChatGPT answers... but its own website only gets cited as a source 50,000 times. Why? Because Disney's site doesn't answer anything so when the AI needs proof, it goes looking elsewhere.

And here's the flip side the same study found: when a website actually publishes real information, AI cites it directly. In the retail chapter, the sites with real pricing and product info were the AI's #1 sources, the study's own words were "your own website is the asset."

So it's not that websites stopped mattering. It's that brochure sites stopped mattering. A five-page site that says "we're licensed and insured, call for a quote" gives the machines nothing to quote. A site with real answers becomes the source.

Sound familiar? It's the same reason we've been beating the drum on reviews for years. Your Google Business Profile isn't for you, it's the evidence file someone else checks before trusting you. AI works the exact same way, just with a bigger evidence file. And your website is the anchor of that file because it's where every review, video, and listing ultimately points, and it's what the AI checks your story against.

So the question becomes: what's in YOUR evidence file?

Two machines, two rulebooks

This is where it gets interesting. The two platforms trust completely different sources:

ChatGPT runs on the written word. Through June, Reddit was its #1 source at 43% of all citations, with Wikipedia at #2. Community discussion is how ChatGPT decides who's legit. (Hold that thought though — there's a plot twist on Reddit I'll get to in a minute, and it might be the most important lesson in this email.)

Google AI Mode runs on what it can watch. YouTube is its #1 source (and growing every month). Facebook is #2 at 17%. And here's the one nobody's talking about: Yelp shows up heavy — in the most local-ish category they measured, Yelp was 77% of AI Mode's citations. For business services, BBB and LinkedIn made up 40%.

Read that again. The AI tools are citing Yelp, Facebook, BBB, YouTube, and Reddit to decide who gets recommended. When's the last time you touched your Yelp page? That dusty profile with 11 reviews from 2022 just became a visibility problem.

The play for home service pros

You don't need a "GEO strategy" or some $5k/month AI package some guru is selling. You need to show up where the machines look for proof. Here's the punch list:

1. Spread your reviews around. Keep the Google review engine running because that's still the foundation. But start routing some review asks to Yelp and Facebook. If you're using a review link in your follow-up texts, add a simple rotation. Ten fresh Yelp reviews might do more for your AI visibility than your next 50 on Google. Something to really think about.

2. Start the YouTube channel. For real this time. It's the #1 source for Google's AI and it's not close. And this is the easiest content in the world for us — "what fits in a 20-yard dumpster," "what does junk removal cost in [your city]," before-and-afters from your crew. Phone camera. Real answers to real customer questions. Ten honest and unpolished videos beats a high-end over-edited one.

3. Show up on Reddit like a human — but don't build your house there. Find your city's subreddit and your trade's subreddits. Answer questions. Be helpful. Don't pitch. One solid "here's what junk removal actually costs and why" comment builds trust with readers and machines alike. (Spam will get you buried — don't be that guy.) But here's that plot twist: two weeks ago, ChatGPT quietly cut Reddit citations by about 86% — almost overnight. Same thing happened once in 2025, and it partially came back. Nobody outside OpenAI knows why. Sit with that for a second, because it's the real lesson of this whole email: the machines change their minds without warning. Anyone who bet their entire "AI strategy" on the hot source of the quarter just got turned off like a light switch. The evidence file wins because it's spread out.

4. Claim the boring listings. BBB. Your chamber. The local directories you forgot existed. The AI cross-references these to confirm you're a real business that's been around.

5. Make your website worth quoting. This is the one that ties it all together. Transparent pricing pages, real FAQ answers, service pages with actual substance — that's what gets cited directly by the AI. The companies hiding their prices behind "call for a quote" are handing this one to the rest of us. And if your site is a dusty template from 2019 that loads slow and says nothing, understand what that means now: it's not just costing you conversions, it's invisible to the machines deciding who gets recommended.

And that Bing thing I mentioned? ChatGPT's live search runs on Bing's index. If your site isn't in Bing Webmaster Tools with a sitemap submitted, ChatGPT may not even be able to find you to recommend you. Takes 20 minutes. Do it this week.

What NOT to do

Don't torch what's working. Google Business Profile, LSA, your website, your review engine, your ads — that whole machine still drives the trucks today, and Google's AI is built on top of that same data. This isn't a replacement. It's the same game we've always played — be trustworthy everywhere someone checks — with a few new places to check.

And that Reddit whiplash is exactly why the answer is the whole file, not whichever platform is trending. Reviews, video, listings, and a website worth quoting don't get switched off by one company's algorithm change.

The operators who build this evidence file over the next 12 months are going to own their markets when "just ask ChatGPT" becomes normal customer behavior. It's already happening. Believe me when I tell you, the juice 🥤 is worth the squeeze 🍊.

That's it for this week. Ttyl ✌️

— Justin

P.S. Want to know what the AI engines are actually saying about your company right now? Request your free AI visibility audit here.