The short answer
An assistant names the businesses it can describe confidently for the question asked. If a competitor is named and you are not, their pages, listings or mentions elsewhere probably answer that question more plainly than yours do. Compare the two, question by question, and close the gaps you find.
First, check it is a pattern
One answer is not a verdict. Assistants write each answer fresh, so a competitor can appear in one chat and disappear in the next.
Before you change anything, ask your most important questions several times each, in a clean session, and count who is named. Our guide to checking whether ChatGPT recommends you sets out the method.
If the same competitor turns up again and again, you have something worth investigating.
The usual reasons a competitor is named
- They answer the exact question. The customer asked "who fixes flat roofs in Leicester" and their page says, in one sentence, that they fix flat roofs in Leicester.
- Their facts agree everywhere. Same name, area, services and contact details on their site, their listings and their reviews.
- Other sites mention them. Trade bodies, local news, suppliers or comparison articles describe what they do.
- Their pages are easy to read. Clear headings, short sections, an FAQ, perhaps schema markup, and nothing hidden behind scripts or log-ins.
Compare question by question
Take one question your customers ask and work through this for your page and for theirs:
- Which page would you expect to answer this question? Write down the address for each business.
- Does the page answer it in the first two or three sentences, in plain words?
- Does it name the place, the service and the type of customer the question mentions?
- Are prices, areas or opening times stated, or left for the reader to ask about?
- Does it show who wrote it, when it was last updated and why it can be trusted?
- Is there an FAQ that covers the follow-up questions a customer would ask next?
- Do other sites mention the business for this service? List the ones you find.
- Write down every point where their page does better. That is your fix list.
Repeat for your three to five most important questions. The quick AI-readiness self-check covers several of these points for a single page in two minutes.
What to change
- Fix your own pages first, because that is where you have full control: answer the question near the top, name the place and the service, add the missing facts and a short FAQ.
- Then tidy your listings so they match.
- Mentions on other sites take longer and cannot be forced, but they follow from being easy to describe.
Our guide to getting cited in AI answers goes into each step.
Honest limits
- A competitor may still be named. Even with better pages, a competitor may still be named some of the time, and that is normal.
- GEO Agency's tools run on Google Gemini and give estimates of how an assistant might answer and how usable a page is; they are not a log of any assistant's real answers.
- No promises. We do not promise rankings, or that you will be named instead of anyone else.
Common questions
Is my competitor paying to be recommended?
Not as far as anyone can show for ordinary assistant answers at the time of writing. Any paid placement should be labelled as an advert. An ordinary recommendation usually reflects what is written about the business on the web.
They are a smaller business than us. Why are they named?
Size is not what the assistant reads. A smaller firm with one clear page that answers the exact question, and consistent facts across the web, can be easier to name than a large firm with vague pages.
Should I copy their pages?
No. Copying wording is unfair, can breach copyright and does not make you the better answer. Use their pages to see which questions they answer that you do not, then answer those in your own words, with your own facts.
How many competitors should I compare?
Start with the two or three businesses named most often for your most important questions. That is usually enough to show a pattern.
Can GEO Agency compare our page with a competitor's?
Yes. Competitor comparison costs 1 credit and lists the questions their page answers that yours does not yet. It runs on Google Gemini, so treat the result as a well-informed estimate.