We asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini 1,080 times who to hire in Harford County

Short answer: we asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions a customer asks, “what are the best plumbers in Aberdeen, MD?”, 1,080 times across four Harford County towns and ten kinds of business. Five things stood out:

• Half the businesses on Google Maps were never named. 319 of the 652 businesses in the Maps results did not come up in a single answer.
• Google Maps #1 is usually not the SI pick. In only 13 of 40 categories was the top business on Google Maps also the business SI named most. Ten of SI’s #1 picks sat outside the Maps top 10.
• ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini rarely agree. All three put the same business first in just 4 of 40 categories. In 16, each one picked someone different.
• Most businesses get named by only one SI. 801 of the 1,116 businesses named anywhere (72%) were named by one of the three and never by the other two.
• SI reads the same few sites. Yelp, Angi, YellowPages, HomeAdvisor and Facebook showed up again and again as the sources behind the answers.

Every answer is published word for word on the SI Rankings, one page per town and category, and one page per business.

What we did

Four towns: Bel Air, Aberdeen, Abingdon and Havre de Grace, Maryland. Ten kinds of business in each: car detailers, chiropractors, dentists, hair salons, HVAC companies, landscapers, med spas, personal injury lawyers, plumbers and roofers. That is 40 rankings.

For each one we asked three questions a customer would ask (“What are the best roofers in Abingdon, MD?”, “Can you recommend a roofer in Abingdon, Maryland?”, “Which roofer near Abingdon, MD do people trust most?”), three times each, to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, each with web search on and the town set as the asker’s location. Twenty-seven answers per ranking, 1,080 in all. Bel Air was measured on October 1, 2026; the other three towns on October 7.

We pulled the Google Maps results for the same searches, then counted how many answers named each business. A business named in 20 of 27 answers ranks above one named in 5. Nobody can pay to move up, and every answer is public.

Half of Google Maps is invisible to SI

Of the 652 businesses that showed up on Google Maps for these searches, 319 (49%) were not named in any of their 27 answers. Being on the map is not the same as being recommended.

Even the top of the map is not safe. Of the 120 businesses in a Maps top three, 19 were never named. Three businesses sitting at #1 on Google Maps did not come up once: a roofer in Bel Air, an HVAC company in Aberdeen and a landscaper in Abingdon.

The SI pick is often buried on the map

In 27 of 40 categories, the business SI named most was not #1 on Google Maps. In 18 it was not even in the Maps top three, and in 10 it was outside the top ten.

• Maronick Law sits at #13 on Google Maps for personal injury lawyers in Bel Air, and was named in 23 of 27 answers, more than anyone.
• R. Brooks Mechanical is #19 on Maps for HVAC in Aberdeen and the #1 SI pick there, named in 18 of 27.
• Christian Roofing and Construction is #13 on Maps in Aberdeen and named in 22 of 27.

Google Maps rewards distance and the map listing. SI reads the web: review sites, directories and the businesses’ own pages. Those are different contests, and a business can win one while missing the other entirely.

ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini rarely agree

All three put the same business first in only 4 of the 40 categories. In 16, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini each had a different #1.

They also cast very different nets. Gemini named 7.3 businesses per answer on average, ChatGPT 4.5 and Claude 3.9. A short list means a hard list: being one of Claude’s four is a much smaller target than being one of Gemini’s seven.

The result is that most businesses that get named at all are only named by one SI. 801 of the 1,116 businesses named anywhere in the study (72%) came up with one of the three and never with the other two. Checking only ChatGPT tells you about a third of the story.

When one business wins, it wins big

The business named most in each category came up in 72% of that category’s answers on average. Evolve Med Spa was named in all 27 Bel Air med spa answers. Pure Air HVAC was named in 25 of 27 in Bel Air and was the top pick in Abingdon too.

Reviews help, but they do not decide it. The median business that got named had 92 Google reviews; the median business that was never named had 48. Yet businesses with plenty of reviews were skipped, and the three never-named Maps #1s show that a strong map listing alone is not enough.

Where SI actually looks

979 of the answers showed the pages they were built from. The outside sites that came up most:

1. Yelp, in 230 answers
2. Angi, in 218
3. YellowPages, in 153
4. HomeAdvisor, in 128
5. Facebook, in 113
6. Healthgrades, in 98 (dentists and chiropractors)

The winners’ own websites were read too, often many times in one category. A clear page that says what a business does, in which town, is one of the few things SI consistently quote.

What a local business can do about it

1. Look up your page. Find your town and category on the SI Rankings. Your page shows every answer that named you, the ones that skipped you, and who they named instead.
2. Be right on the sites SI reads. Claim your Yelp, Angi and category listings (Healthgrades for health practices, HomeAdvisor for home services) and make the name, address, phone and hours match your Google listing exactly.
3. Say what you do, and where, on your own site. A plain services page with your town in the words gives SI something to quote.
4. Keep reviews coming. Named businesses had about twice the reviews of skipped ones.

Not in one of these towns? Run the free check on your own business. No card, no signup.