How we check

Each engine got three prompts for each of 5 cities (Austin, Denver, Phoenix, Nashville, Columbus), for 60 answers in total. 60 came back.

• “best plumber in Austin, TX”
• “who should I call for an emergency plumber in Austin, TX”
• “top rated plumbing companies in Austin, TX”

• ChatGPTgpt-4o-mini
• Geminigemini-2.5-flash
• Claudeclaude-haiku-4-5
• Perplexitysonar

Web search was on for all four, so answers reflect what a person asking today would see. Each prompt was sent once, with no conversation history and no location hint beyond the city in the prompt. Calls ran through the DataForSEO LLM Responses API, which queries each provider's model directly.

Each answer was split into paragraphs and list items. A small model (gpt-4o-mini, temperature 0) read each piece and returned the businesses it recommends as JSON. We kept a name only if it appears word for word in that piece of the answer, which drops anything the extractor invents. Directories and review sites (Yelp, Angi, BBB and similar) and generic phrases are excluded. Position is the order a business first appears.

Every named business was searched on Google Maps in its city through the DataForSEO Maps API. We also pulled the Maps top 20 for “plumber” in each city. A name counts as verified when a listing in the same state matches it:

• every distinctive word in the AI's name appears in the listing title (generic words like plumbing, heating or the city name are ignored), or
• the name is a near-exact spelling match, or
• the website domain the AI gave matches the listing's domain.

The listing also has to be a trade business (plumbing, HVAC, drains and similar). Names that fail the first search get a second, wider search (“name city state”). Anything still unmatched is labeled not found on Maps. Listings Google marks as permanently or temporarily closed would be labeled closed; none turned up in this edition. Mentions that resolve to the same Maps listing are merged, so “Roto-Rooter” and “Roto-Rooter Denver” count once.

The consensus ranking sorts by how many of the 4 engines named a business, then how many of the 12 answers did, then its average position in those answers. Ratings and review counts come from the matched Google Maps listing, not from the AI's text.

• One run per prompt. AI answers vary between runs, so treat each page as a snapshot.
• API answers can differ from the consumer apps, which add memory, location and personalization.
• “Not found” is strict. A real business with a very different Maps name, or no Maps listing, lands there too. We publish every name so you can check.
• Maps results depend on the search location and change daily.