Start with a question a homeowner might ask: who can repair a roof leak in your service area? Save the answer before you change your website or buy another marketing service. Your first job is to establish what appeared in that particular test.
ChatGPT supports web search and displays citations when it uses that tool. Ask it to search current sources, then check that the response actually includes search activity and links. OpenAI's web-search documentation explains the feature.
The steps below are our recommended audit method. They are not a formula for getting recommended. The useful output is a record you can inspect and a list of specific problems you can fix.
For a shorter starting checklist, use our manual ChatGPT recommendation test.
Define the roofing work you want to test
Choose one real service area and one kind of job. Keep roof replacement, leak repair and commercial roofing separate in your notes. Do not test commercial work if your company only serves homeowners.
Write down your exact business name, website and service boundary before you start. Include any trading name that appears on your invoices. This gives you a reference when checking whether an answer describes your company or another roofer with a similar name.
Use a small set of questions, such as:
- "Search the web for roofing companies that repair leaks in [city]. Show your sources."
- "Which roofers handle asphalt shingle replacement in [city]? Search current sources."
- "Help me compare roof repair companies serving [city], with links to the evidence."
These are suggested prompts, not claims about what homeowners ask most often. Replace the examples with services you actually provide. Leave your company name out of this first test so you can assess discovery without supplying the answer yourself.
Save the test conditions
For each question, use a separate chat and record the date, product, visible model label and city in the prompt. Note whether you were signed in and whether you supplied any extra context. Keep the wording unchanged for your next comparison.
We recommend running each question more than once. Preserve all completed answers, including those that do not name you. If a request fails or produces no usable local answer, mark that result separately; do not quietly count it as a completed test.
Use a simple record:
| Field | What to save |
|---|---|
| Question | The exact text you submitted |
| Test conditions | Date, product, model label and supplied location |
| Named businesses | Names as written, including your own if present |
| Description | Services, hours and service area attributed to you |
| Evidence | Answer text and the linked source pages |
| Problems | Wrong identity, unsupported claims or inaccessible sources |
Do not change the question halfway through and call the new result an improvement. Start a new series if you need a different service or city.
Read the answer before scoring it
Separate a recommendation from a passing mention. For your own record, define "recommended" as inclusion in the answer's suggested provider list. A mention in a warning, comparison question or unrelated example should get a different label.
Then check identity. Does the website belong to your business? Is the location right? Does the answer confuse residential and commercial services? Save any incorrect statement exactly, with its associated link if there is one.
Treat a flattering description with the same care as a negative one. If an answer says you provide round-the-clock repairs, check that against your actual service. An inaccurate compliment still needs attention.
Avoid turning this small test into a claim about all homeowners, all prompts or all AI products. Report the narrow finding: your business appeared, or did not appear, in the saved answers to these questions.
For a public example, open the Dallas roofing market page and review its displayed date, questions and source links. Keep that market sample separate from a test of your own business.
Inspect the cited pages
Open the links alongside the answer. Find the passage about your business and record what it says. Label a page as "cited in this answer" rather than assuming it explains the whole decision.
OpenAI's API documentation distinguishes displayed citations from the fuller list of consulted URLs. That is a reason to be careful with source labels, not a promise that the consumer interface exposes every source. OpenAI's sources documentation describes that distinction.
For each accessible page, ask practical questions. Is the company name correct? Is the page about the right city? Is it a real roofing business profile or a general article? Does the page support the claim made beside its citation?
If you cannot inspect a source, mark it unverified. Do not invent what it contains. Your notes should preserve uncertainty instead of filling gaps with a plausible story.
Fix errors that you can demonstrate
Start with customer-facing inaccuracies: a wrong number, obsolete location, false emergency-hours claim or missing service explanation. Write down the existing wording, the correct wording, the page owner and the action needed.
For your own site, review the pages a homeowner would use to choose a roofer. We recommend clear descriptions of the roofing materials you work with, the jobs you accept, the towns you serve and how estimates work. Add genuine project examples where you have permission. Avoid implying that every project is suitable for every property.
Google's content guidance favors material made for people and grounded in firsthand expertise. That supports useful project explanations as a content practice; it does not establish a ChatGPT ranking boost. Google's people-first content guidance sets out that advice.
Ask your web provider to check search access separately. OpenAI identifies OAI-SearchBot as its search crawler and distinguishes it from GPTBot's training role. OpenAI's crawler documentation explains the controls. Review the configuration before making changes; an access fix is not a recommendation guarantee.
If the problem is an incorrect number, opening hours or closed-business claim, follow our guide to correcting business information in ChatGPT answers.
Give each fix an owner
Keep the work list short enough to finish. A useful task is "correct the emergency-hours statement on this page," with a URL and an owner. "Improve AI authority" is too vague to review.
Set priorities based on the evidence and the customer impact you can explain. We suggest correcting misleading contact details first, then important service gaps, then smaller presentation improvements. Record the reason for that order.
When a third-party directory owns a page, use its correction process. Save the request and check the public page later. Mark the task complete when you can verify the correction, rather than when you merely submit it.
Repeat and compare honestly
On your chosen review date, rerun the original questions under the recorded conditions as closely as practical. Keep any unavoidable differences beside the results. Compare the saved answers and the corrected pages separately.
If your name appears more often, describe that change within the tested sample. Do not credit a particular edit without stronger evidence. If nothing changes, you can still report whether the inaccurate information was repaired.
FAQ
Should I ask directly about my company?
Yes, as a separate accuracy check. Asking about a named business answers a different question from asking for providers without naming one.
What if a competitor is mentioned?
Inspect the cited evidence and look for factual gaps you can verify. Do not copy its claims or assume its listing explains the result.
What should I do first?
Save a baseline, then fix one clear problem. Keep the original answer so the next review has something concrete to compare.
Check your business
Source documentation checked November 11, 2026. The audit steps above are our recommendations.
Run a free scan at localpickai.com to check whether ChatGPT recommends your roofing business, see who it names instead, and get a ranked fix list.
