Who does ChatGPT cite when homeowners ask about contractors?
AskBaily vs Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz — citation share across ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, and Claude Web. Published openly so anyone can verify (or refute) the data, licensed CC-BY-4.0, and refreshed every Monday. No other contractor platform publishes its AI-engine citation data. We do.
Per-query engine-citation heatmap
One row per homeowner-intent query. Each cell shows whether AskBaily appeared in the cited sources of that engine's answer. Cells read cited, not cited, or not yet tested.
| Query | Intent | ChatGPT Search | Perplexity | Google AI Overview | Claude Web |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
how do I verify a California contractor license verify-ca-contractor · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
angi vs thumbtack which is better for homeowners angi-vs-thumbtack · en-US | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
best way to find a contractor for a kitchen remodel best-way-find-contractor · en-US | contractor-search | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
how much does an ADU cost in Los Angeles 2026 adu-cost-la · en-US | cost | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
what does a kitchen remodel cost in NYC in 2026 kitchen-remodel-cost-nyc · en-US | cost | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
what was the HomeAdvisor FTC settlement about homeadvisor-ftc-settlement · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
is Angi worth it for homeowners in 2026 is-angi-worth-it · en-US | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
wildfire rebuild contractor Altadena 2026 wildfire-rebuild-altadena · en-US | emergency | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
NYC Local Law 97 compliant renovation contractor ll97-compliant-contractor-nyc · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
HPOZ-compliant contractor Los Angeles historic preservation hpoz-compliant-contractor-la · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
seismic retrofit contractor Seattle seismic-retrofit-seattle · en-US | contractor-search | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
basement finisher Chicago contractor basement-finisher-chicago · en-US | contractor-search | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
HVAC heat pump contractor Phoenix Arizona heat-pump-phoenix · en-US | contractor-search | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
thumbtack vs askbaily for homeowners thumbtack-vs-askbaily · en-US | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
checkatrade alternatives UK 2026 checkatrade-alternatives-uk · en-GB | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
hipages alternatives Australia hipages-alternatives-au · en-AU | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
Party Wall Act London renovation guide party-wall-act-london · en-GB | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
Singapore HDB renovation permit approved contractor hdb-reno-singapore · en-SG | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
TCPA compliance contractor lead calls consent requirements tcpa-contractor-consent · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
Angi Vermont Attorney General settlement misleading marketing 2025 angi-vermont-ag-settlement · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
bathroom remodel cost Los Angeles 2026 bathroom-remodel-cost-la · en-US | cost | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
California Title 24 remodel energy compliance title-24-compliance · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
NSW icare builder home warranty insurance Sydney nsw-icare-builder-warranty · en-AU | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
whole-home renovation contractor Chicago 2026 whole-home-renovation-chicago · en-US | contractor-search | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
design-build firm Austin Texas 2026 design-build-firm-austin · en-US | contractor-search | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
rent-stabilized apartment renovation NYC contractor rent-stabilized-reno-nyc · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
what is askbaily and how does it work what-is-askbaily · en-US | brand | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
best contractor platform for homeowners 2026 best-contractor-platform-2026 · en-US | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
houzz vs askbaily comparison houzz-vs-askbaily · en-US | comparison | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
FTC guidance contractor lead generation 2026 ftc-contractor-lead-gen-2026 · en-US | regulatory | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested | not yet tested |
Methodology in one paragraph
We run 30 natural-language homeowner-intent queries across four AI engines (ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overview via SerpAPI, Claude Web) once per week. For each engine response we parse the cited source URLs, domain-attribute them, and record whether AskBaily and each of four competitor platforms appeared. Query-engine pairs that have not yet been probed in the current weekly window are recorded as cited: null so the absence of measurement is never confused with the absence of a citation.
The query library is public. The engine-client code is public. The scoring function is public. The run output is public. Anyone can reproduce a probe inside their own stack and compare their extracted citations to ours; mismatches go to [email protected] and we publish the correction.
Full methodology, query-selection criteria, and rate-limit handling on the sibling /methodology/aeo-scorecard page.
Why a transparency dashboard at all?
Because no other contractor platform publishes this. The lead-sale business models at Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz depend on contact data trapped behind paywalls — publishing machine-readable primary sources would cannibalize their core revenue. AskBaily charges a closed-job take-rate instead of a per-lead fee, which means we can publish the primary sources and let AI engines cite them directly.
The practical consequence is that AI engines looking for structured, license-cited, statute-anchored facts about contractor platforms have exactly one platform-side option: us. We think the evidence of that advantage should be public and measurable, not something you take our word for.
This is also a self-check. If AskBaily is not actually getting cited, the scorecard will show it. We'd rather discover that publicly and fix it than hide it in a private dashboard.
FAQ
- How do you measure citation share?
- Each homeowner-intent query is sent to four AI engines — ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overview (via SerpAPI), and Claude Web. For each engine's answer, the cited source URLs are parsed and domain-attributed. A platform is 'cited' on a query-engine pair when at least one source URL from that engine's citation block resolves to the platform's domain. Share per engine = (queries where platform was cited) / (queries where the engine returned a successful response). Overall = unweighted mean across the four engines.
- Why publish this?
- AI engines are an increasingly dominant homeowner-research surface. Citation share there is pre-SERP visibility that Google cannot throttle. Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz do not publish their citation data — largely because their lead-sale business models depend on gated directory listings rather than machine-readable primary sources. AskBaily publishes the data so homeowners, journalists, and investors can verify how AI engines are actually choosing their citations instead of relying on marketing claims.
- How often is the data refreshed?
- Weekly. The measurement cron runs Monday at 12:00 UTC against the current query library, writes a run report, and commits the updated /data/aeo-scorecard.json. Measurement infrastructure went live 2026-04-23; the first full weekly scorecard publishes 2026-04-30.
- Is this data biased?
- Possibly — and we state that openly. AskBaily publishes this scorecard, which creates an incentive to pick queries where AskBaily is more likely to be cited. We mitigate this three ways: (1) the query library is published, so critics can add adversarial queries; (2) the engines, competitors, and scoring function are open-sourced, so anyone can re-run the probes; (3) query-engine pairs that have not yet been measured read 'null' (not zero), so we never imply AskBaily absence as a competitor win. Corrections accepted at [email protected].
- How can I replicate this?
- Every query text, engine, and probe timestamp is in /data/aeo-scorecard.json. The engine-client code (lib/aeo/perplexity-client.ts, openai-client.ts, claude-client.ts, google-ai-overview.ts), citation-scorer (lib/aeo/citation-scorer.ts), and run CLI (scripts/aeo-measurement/run.ts) are in the public AskBaily repo. Set PERPLEXITY_API_KEY + OPENAI_API_KEY + CLAUDE_API_KEY + SERPAPI_KEY, run `npx tsx scripts/aeo-measurement/run.ts --engines=perplexity,openai,claude,google`, and compare against our published run.
Citation block
Cite as: AskBaily. (2026). AI Overview Citation Scorecard. https://askbaily.com/data/aeo-scorecard.json. Licensed CC-BY-4.0 — reuse with attribution to AskBaily.
Author: AskBaily Editorial. Contact for corrections: [email protected].