Which businesses does ChatGPT recommend in Cyprus?
- 47 %of the top 3 on Google Maps are named
- 72Google reviews of the named, at the median
- 146questions in 49 industries
ChatGPT names six businesses when you ask it for the best dentist, gym or car rental company in a city in Cyprus. We asked 146 such questions in October 2026. The businesses it names have 72 Google reviews at the median. A business in the top 3 on Google Maps was named in 47 % of the cases, one on places 11 to 20 in 10 %.
The questions cover 49 industries in Paphos, Limassol, Nicosia and Larnaca, each in the form "best dentist in Paphos" (how we tested).
Which businesses does ChatGPT recommend in Cyprus?
Businesses with many Google reviews. The 809 businesses ChatGPT named in our test have a median of 72 reviews, and one in four has more than 154.
- 492 of the 809 have 50 reviews or more. That is 61 %.
- 324 have 100 or more.
- 53 have fewer than 10. That is 7 %.
A website is not a condition. 74 of the 809 named businesses have none. In 143 of the 146 answers ChatGPT showed a list of businesses, and in three it answered with text only.
Does ChatGPT follow Google Maps?
To a large part. The higher a business stands on Google Maps for the same search, the more often ChatGPT names it: almost every second business in the top 3, and one in ten on places 11 to 20.
| Place on Google Maps | Businesses | Named by ChatGPT | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Places 1 to 3 | 428 | 201 | 47 % |
| Places 4 to 10 | 973 | 272 | 28 % |
| Places 11 to 20 | 1,342 | 139 | 10 % |
It is not a copy of the map. The business on place 1 was named in 70 of the 143 answers, so in half of them it was not. And 201 of the 809 named businesses, one in four, do not stand in the first 20 on Google Maps for that search at all.
Where does ChatGPT get its answers?
From review data and from directories. 128 of the 143 answers print star ratings or review counts next to the names, and every answer links to at least one website as its source.
We found 218 different websites among those sources. The ones that came up most:
- top-rated.online, a directory that ranks places by their Google Maps reviews: in 31 answers
- Fresha, the booking platform for salons: in 16
- Wanderlog, a travel planner: in 14
- Tripadvisor: in 11
- Directories from Cyprus, such as index.cy, cypindex.com and the Cyta yellow pages: in three to five answers each
The website of the business itself is rare among the sources. Of 701 named businesses with a website, ChatGPT linked to that website in 66 cases, which is 9 %. Among its sources, what others write about you outweighs what you write yourself.
How many businesses does ChatGPT never name?
About two in three. We checked 875 established businesses with a website of their own against the answers for their industry and city, and 565 of them were not named.
That follows from the numbers: there are six names in an answer, and far more than six dentists in Limassol. An answer has less room than a map.
How do you get recommended by ChatGPT?
Do the same things that put you at the top of Google Maps, and get listed where ChatGPT reads. Our numbers point to three things, in this order:
- Reviews. The named businesses have a median of 72. See how many Google reviews the top 3 have in Cyprus for your industry.
- Your Google profile. Almost half of the top 3 on the map are named. How to set it up is in our guide to the Google Business Profile in Cyprus.
- The directories and platforms of your industry: Fresha for a salon, Tripadvisor for anything a visitor books, the local directories for everyone. Check that your name, address and phone number are the same everywhere.
We see the same with a client outside Cyprus. TWINS-ATELIER, a tattoo studio in Hamburg, stands at number 1 on Google Maps for tattoo in Hamburg and is named by ChatGPT for the same question. We checked both on 3 October 2026.
Is AI SEO different from SEO?
For a local business, hardly. What is sold as AI SEO or ChatGPT SEO rests on the same ground in our data: reviews, the Google profile and listings on other websites.
New is the size of the list. ChatGPT gives six names where Google Maps gives twenty and more. A business on place 8 is still on the map's list. In ChatGPT it is mostly not mentioned: 28 % of the businesses on places 4 to 10 were named. This is part of our SEO work in Cyprus.
How reliable is an answer from ChatGPT?
It changes. ChatGPT does not give the same answer twice, so a business named today can be missing tomorrow. Our test is one answer for each question.
Read the numbers as a picture of who gets named, not as a fixed ranking. If you want to know where you stand, ask the question for your industry and city several times, on different days, and count how often your name comes up.
How did we test?
We asked ChatGPT 146 questions on 3 October 2026 and stored each answer with the businesses it named, their review counts and the websites it linked.
- Each question has the form "best dentist in Paphos": 49 industries, four cities, in English.
- ChatGPT answered with web search switched on and Cyprus as the location.
- For the comparison we took the first 20 results on Google Maps for the same search, one day earlier.
What the numbers cannot show:
- One answer for each question. A second run would name partly different businesses.
- The Google Maps results come from one search from the city centre. Someone searching from another part of town sees another order.
- We matched ChatGPT's names with the map by the name of the business. A business listed under two spellings can be missed.
- The numbers show what the named businesses have in common. They do not prove why ChatGPT picked them.
- We tested ChatGPT only, not Gemini or Google's AI answers.