AI recommendations / How we count

How we count AI restoration recommendations

Last run November 6, 2026. We run it again on the 1st of each month.

The assistants

  • ChatGPT: the public chatgpt.com site, logged out, with web search, reached through the DataForSEO LLM scraper.
  • Gemini: the public Gemini app with web search, through the DataForSEO LLM scraper, with the town as the location (its county when the API has no entry for the town).
  • Google AI Mode: Google Search in AI Mode, through the DataForSEO SERP API, with the town as the location (its county when the API has no entry for the town).
  • Perplexity: the Sonar model with web search, through the DataForSEO LLM responses API. That API takes no location.

The questions

Each town gets 3 questions per service, written the way a homeowner types them. Each question goes to each assistant 3 times, because one answer swings a lot from ask to ask. That is 36 answers per town and service. The Troy water damage questions, as an example:

  1. best water damage restoration in Troy, MI
  2. who should I call for a flooded basement in Troy, MI
  3. top rated water damage restoration company in Troy Michigan

Services covered: water damage restoration, mold remediation, fire and smoke damage.

How a name is counted

  • A company counts once per answer, however many times that answer names it.
  • "Named in 18 of 36" means 18 of the 36 answers for that town and service named the company. The 36 includes answers that named no company.
  • Names are matched to a company by its exact name, its phone number, or a distinctive brand word near the town. A chain name with no location is matched to its nearest office within 15 miles, and only when one office fits.
  • A name that matches no known company still appears, spelled the way the assistant wrote it.
  • "Websites the assistants used" counts the answers that cited each website. "Searches ChatGPT ran" are the web searches ChatGPT reported for its answers.
  • A town shows the count only when it has at least 9 answers and at least 5 different companies named.

What we never do

  • We do not edit, reorder or remove any count, including for a company that pays for a listing elsewhere on this site.
  • The AI count never changes the Compare Score or the order of a ranked list. The two lists sit side by side and stay separate.
  • No business pays to appear in the AI count.

The raw counts for every town, service, company and assistant are in the CSV file. The Compare Score has its own method page.