Your Google business page is what AI reads

When an AI assistant recommends a local business, it mostly reads two things: the business's own website and its Google business page. In our test of 733 answers across 11 Australian areas, those two sources made up 78% of everything the assistants cited. And 7 of the 12 businesses we checked had a website and a Google page that disagreed on at least one detail, most often opening hours.

The two sources AI leans on

Every answer we collected came with its sources, 4,657 citations in all. Business websites took 60% of them. Google Maps and Google business pages took 18%. Directories such as Healthdirect, Fresha and Yellow Pages took 8%, and news sites, social media and everything else shared the rest.

So your Google business page is the second biggest input, ahead of every directory put together. When the website and the Google page say the same thing, the assistant and the customer get one answer, whichever page they read.

When your website and Google page disagree

Seven of the 12 businesses had at least one detail that didn't match between their website and their Google page. Here is what was out of step:

• opening hours, for 5 businesses
• Saturday hours, for 2
• the address, for 2
• the phone number, for 2

None of these is exotic: hours, a phone number, an address. Each is easy to change in one place and miss in the other, and it rarely shows, because the two pages are seldom looked at side by side.

When the assistants stated a fact about a business, they were right 94% of the time. The most common thing they got wrong was opening hours, for 5 of the 12 businesses. An answer only counted as wrong if it matched neither the website nor the Google page as we recorded them. For two of those five we only had the hours from one of the two, so some of their wrong answers may simply repeat the other.

Where a business's own two pages disagreed, the assistants usually passed on one version or the other, and different assistants sometimes gave different ones. A customer could be told the wrong or outdated version, and someone who turns up to a closed door doesn't care which page was wrong.

Reviews are part of the page too

Your Google page also carries your reviews, and they line up with who gets recommended. In each area, the three businesses AI named most had a median of 220 Google reviews. The other businesses it named had a median of 82.

That doesn't prove reviews cause the recommendation. Busy, established businesses tend to have more reviews and more of everything else. But reviews are one of the few signals you can see, compare with a competitor and improve month by month, and they sit on the same page the assistants are reading.

What a well kept Google page looks like

You don't need anything clever. You need the page to be complete, current and the same as your website:

• The business name written exactly as it is on your website and signage.
• The full address with postcode, or your service area if you go to customers.
• One main phone number, the same one your website shows first.
• Regular hours for every day, plus special hours for public holidays and closures.
• Categories and services that match what you actually offer, in the words customers use.
• A short description that says what you do, where, and for whom.
• Recent photos, and replies to reviews, good and bad.

What you can do this week

1. Put the two side by side. Open your website and your Google business page on the same screen. Check the name, address with postcode, phone number and the hours for each day of the week, Saturday and Sunday included. Write down every difference.
2. Pick one source of truth and fix the other. Decide which version is right, then update the other one the same day. If your hours appear in several places on your website (the footer, the contact page, a booking page), change all of them.
3. Add public holiday hours now. Google lets you set special hours for single days. Christmas and New Year are coming; set them before customers start asking.
4. Check your services and description. Make sure the services listed on Google match the services on your website, in the same plain words.
5. Ask for reviews as part of your routine. A short message after each visit or job, a few each month, beats one big push a year. Reply to the reviews you get.
6. Ask the assistants. Type "best [your service] in [your suburb]" and "what are [your business]'s hours on Saturday" into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude. See whether the answers match what you just fixed. They can take a while to catch up, so check again in a few weeks.

A note to keep near the till or the front desk helps: whenever the hours, phone or address change, update the website and the Google page together.

How we measured

On 5 October 2026 we ran our AI Recommendation Report method for 12 local businesses, five dentists, four physiotherapists and three hair salons, in 11 areas across five states. We asked each assistant the questions locals ask, with web search on, recorded every business named and every source cited, and compared the facts the assistants gave with each business's website and Google page, counting an answer as right if it matched either one. Twelve businesses on one day is a small sample, so read these numbers as a first look. The full findings and method are at score.sbw.studio/findings.

For the wider picture, read why ChatGPT names only about three businesses, or start with how to check whether you show up in AI search.

Want to see what the assistants say about your business, and where your website and Google page disagree? The AI Recommendation Report checks both for your suburb and your competitors, and tells you what to fix first.