The local version of the problem
For a local practice the shift is brutal because of how the answer is delivered. Google gave a searcher a map and twenty options, and being seventh still got you phone calls. An assistant gives a short answer that names two or three practices with reasons attached. There is no page two. Either you are one of the names or the caller never knew you existed.
And the people asking are the best leads you can get. Nobody asks “best implant dentist in my area who takes new patients” out of idle curiosity. They are days away from booking. The same goes for “family lawyer in [city] for a custody case” or “private clinic for knee surgery near [town].” High intent, high value, one answer.
How do the engines pick the names? The same way they pick in every market we measure for our public recommendation index: from sources they can read and trust. For local services that means review platforms, professional directories, local press, and, crucially, the practice websites themselves. A site that states its services, prices, location and credentials in machine-readable form gives the engine something to work with. A site that is five photos and a contact form does not.
Three checks you can run today
1. Ask the engines what your patients ask
Open ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity and ask five questions in your buyers’ words: best [your specialty] in [your city], [treatment] cost in [city], [your specialty] for [common situation]. Log every practice named. If competitors keep appearing and you do not, you have your diagnosis in fifteen minutes, for free.
2. Check whether machines can read your site
Paste your homepage into validator.schema.org or Google’s Rich Results Test. You are looking for LocalBusiness markup, or the specific types like Dentist, MedicalClinic, LegalService, with your address, hours and services. Nothing there means every engine reading your site is guessing at basic facts your competitor states outright.
3. Read the citations for your market
On Perplexity, ask the same buyer questions and read the cited sources under the answer. Those directories, review sites and articles are the doors into the answers in your area. Check each one: are you listed, is your profile claimed and complete, are your reviews recent? Every unclaimed profile on that list is visibility left on the table.
Get the full picture for your practice
The manual checks tell you if you have a problem. The AI Visibility Report ($1,990, delivered inside a week) tells you how big and what to do: 40-50 real buyer questions run across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, your share of voice against up to 5 local competitors, the cited-source list for your area, your site’s structural gaps, and a prioritized action plan. Ongoing tracking is $490/month. For the deeper background, read why ChatGPT doesn’t recommend your business, and what the work did for a service practice like yours in our coaching-site case study.
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