Is ChatGPT Recommending Your Garage? If Not, Here's Why.

A growing number of people are skipping Google entirely and asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google Gemini for local recommendations. "What's the best garage for an MOT near Derby?" is a real query people are typing into AI chatbots every day.

The question is: when someone asks, does your garage come up?

We ran an experiment. We tested 500 automotive service queries across ChatGPT and Perplexity, covering 15 cities across the UK and US. The results reveal a clear pattern in what makes AI recommend one garage over another.

The Experiment

We asked both ChatGPT (GPT-4) and Perplexity variations of the same core questions:

• "What's the best garage for [service] in [city]?"
• "Can you recommend an auto repair shop near [area]?"
• "Where should I get my [car make] serviced in [location]?"

We recorded which businesses were recommended, how many times, and then reverse-engineered the common traits of the garages that appeared most frequently.

What We Found: The 5 Authority Signals

The garages that consistently got recommended by AI shared five characteristics. We're calling them AI Authority Signals:

1. Mentions on Third-Party Authority Sites

This was the single biggest predictor. Garages mentioned on high-authority websites - think local news outlets, automotive blogs, business directories with editorial content, and industry publications - were 4x more likely to be recommended by AI.

ChatGPT and Perplexity don't crawl the web in real-time for every query. They rely on training data and (in Perplexity's case) live search results from authoritative sources. If your garage only exists on your own website and Google Business Profile, AI has very little data to work with.

2. High Volume of Genuine Google Reviews

Garages with 100+ Google reviews were recommended 3x more often than those with fewer than 20. Both AI systems heavily weight review data when making local recommendations. They also appear to factor in review recency - a garage with 150 reviews from the last 12 months outperforms one with 200 reviews mostly from 3+ years ago.

3. Comprehensive, Structured Website Content

Garages with detailed service pages - not just a list of services, but individual pages with pricing, process explanations, and FAQ sections - performed significantly better. AI systems parse website content to understand what a business actually does and how well they explain it.

A page titled "MOT Testing Derby" with 800 words of useful content outperforms a generic "Our Services" page every time.

4. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) Across the Web

AI systems cross-reference business information across multiple sources. If your garage name, address, and phone number are inconsistent across directories (different phone numbers on Yell vs. Google vs. your website), AI treats this as a trust signal failure. Consistency builds confidence in the recommendation.

5. Industry-Specific Citations and Listings

Being listed on automotive-specific directories and platforms (Good Garage Scheme, Motor Codes, WhoCanFixMyCar, RepairPal) gave garages a significant edge. These industry-specific citations act as vertical authority signals that AI models weigh heavily.

What Doesn't Seem to Matter (Yet)

Interestingly, several factors that matter for traditional SEO didn't appear to strongly influence AI recommendations:

• Website design quality had no measurable impact. AI doesn't care if your site is pretty.
• Social media presence had minimal effect. Having 5,000 Facebook followers didn't translate to AI recommendations.
• Google Ads had zero impact. You can't buy your way into AI recommendations (yet).

The GEO Playbook for Garages

Based on our findings, here's the priority order for getting your garage recommended by AI:

1. Build backlinks from authority sites. Get mentioned on automotive publications, local news, and industry blogs. This is non-negotiable.
2. Scale your Google reviews. Implement automated review requests after every job. Aim for 100+ reviews with a 4.7+ average.
3. Create deep, structured content. Build individual pages for every service in every area you cover. Use FAQ schema, service schema, and LocalBusiness schema.
4. Audit your citations. Ensure your NAP is identical across every directory and listing.
5. Get listed on industry platforms. Good Garage Scheme, Motor Codes, WhoCanFixMyCar, and other automotive directories.

The Window Is Open

Right now, AI search is still in its early stages. Most garages haven't even thought about GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation). The ones that start building these signals now will have an enormous head start as AI search becomes the default way people find local services.

In three years, asking ChatGPT for a garage recommendation will be as natural as Googling one. The question is whether your garage will be in the answer.