How Do Lawn Care Companies Get Recommended by ChatGPT?

A lawn care company's ChatGPT work starts on different sites than a plumber's. In the Cheers Market Baseline's October 2026 US answers, ChatGPT linked LawnStarter or Lawn Love in 30.0% of lawn care answers and in none of its answers to other home-service questions, while the BBB turned up in just 6.3%. A branch network should start with each branch's listings on the sites lawn answers link and the rating homeowners see.

Last verified: November 1, 2026.

Our weekly question asks for the best lawn care and landscaping companies in each city. Use the findings to choose which branch records to inspect first, then check the exact services you sell in your own markets.

National franchise brands showed up in 10.3% of lawn answers that named any business in our late-summer sample, against 60.1% in pest control answers, so the other names are usually regional and local companies.

Lawn answers linked LawnStarter and Houzz more often than BBB

LawnStarter and its sister brand Lawn Love didn't turn up in a single answer to the other 31 questions, on any engine we track. Houzz was in 28.3% of ChatGPT's lawn answers against 1.3% of the rest, likely from the landscaping half of our question. Yably, a best-in-city list site, ran at 34.6% against 12.0%, and Thumbtack at 37.6% against 29.6%.

The BBB and Yelp go the other way, and both show up far more in ChatGPT's other answers: the BBB in 20.5% and Yelp in 30.8%, against 13.5% for Yelp on lawn. ConsumerAffairs, in 43.0% of those other answers, wasn't in a single lawn answer. Keep each branch's BBB and Yelp records accurate alongside the lawn-specific sources. Give the sites most visible in your branch's answers the first corrections.

Every site in the chart except Expertise.com and ConsumerAffairs rose after ChatGPT switched layouts overnight on October 8 to 9. By October 28, LawnStarter or Lawn Love was in 59.3% of lawn answers and Yably in 54.2%, so check what your own branch cities show now, starting with those two.

Expertise.com and Angi sit in most lawn answers, as in every trade

Expertise.com was in 89.0% of US ChatGPT lawn answers, against 63.1% on the other 31 questions, and Angi or HomeAdvisor in 77.6% against 69.1%. Expertise.com didn't need the new layout: it was at 89.7% on October 7, then fell to 66.1% on October 28, a week when ChatGPT's sources shifted across all 32 questions.

Before you try to get a branch onto Expertise.com, read its selection page. It says it checks licenses and judges reputation by "the number of professional databases reviewing them, their average review score, and the volatility of their ratings." Mystery shoppers "call each company," and a provider that has passed review "may choose to advertise" (Expertise.com).

So a branch that isn't on its city's lawn care list needs a phone that gets answered, licenses on file and reviews that keep coming. If a listing shows outdated services, towns or a phone the branch doesn't use, ask Expertise.com to fix it. What sources ChatGPT uses has the wider picture across engines.

Gemini links LawnStarter; Google AI Mode links Google

Gemini linked LawnStarter or Lawn Love in 45.4% of its US lawn answers with recorded sources, and in no answer to the other 31 questions. Angi or HomeAdvisor showed up in 37.0% (18.0% on the other 31), Houzz in 34.5% (1.3%), Thumbtack in 32.8% (8.5%) and the BBB in 2.5% (3.4%).

LawnStarter bought Lawn Love in 2021 and kept both brands (LawnStarter). It says it "assigns a background-checked local provider near you" (LawnStarter's guide), so a homeowner who books through a LawnStarter link may not get your branch. Judge joining the way you'd judge any lead source, on the jobs it sends and the terms.

Google AI Mode mostly links back to Google. Its US lawn answers carried google.com pages in 79.3% (66.9% on the other 31 questions), Angi or HomeAdvisor in 24.1% (27.7%), down to 3 of 60 answers on October 28, Yelp in 20.3% (26.5%) and Thumbtack in 19.8% (11.1%). After October 9, a business's own or brand website showed up in only 18.5% of its lawn answers, against 53.1% on the other 31.

We can't see which google.com pages those were, but the Business Profile is still the Google page to get right first. Google tells service-area businesses to hide their address, keep the service area within about two hours' drive and run one profile per location (Business Profile guidelines). How service-area businesses show coverage covers the towns-served page each profile should link to.

ChatGPT mentions the rating and the review count

After October 9, ChatGPT mentioned a star rating in 92.0% of its lawn answers and a review count in 92.3%, against 75.7% and 75.9% across all 32 questions.

People check the review site behind those numbers, too. Among those who used AI for local business recommendations, 97% double-check its picks against reviews at least sometimes and 42% always check the review site itself, BrightLocal found in March 2026.

The median business Google AI Mode named for the lawn question had 67 Google reviews, against 449 for HVAC questions, in our late-summer sample; how many Google reviews you need for AI has every trade. Those medians aren't a minimum, and US metros ran higher than Canadian ones (332 against 134), so compare each US branch with the businesses named in its own city.

Google sets the rules for the ask. Its contribution policy bars offering anything for a review ("payment, discounts, free goods and/or services"), asking only the customers you expect to be happy, staff review quotas, pressure to review "while on the premises" and requests for "specific content" (Google Maps contribution policy).

Give the crew a neutral invitation and a simple review link or badge. Let the customer choose when to respond, without asking them to finish while the crew waits. If nobody's home after a visit, follow up by text or email, using text only when the customer has agreed to that channel. Track and recognize the team's results without assigning staff review quotas.

Gemini's lawn answers say little about warranties or credentials

Gemini's lawn answers mentioned a warranty or guarantee in 13.0% and a certification in 13.7%, the lowest of the nine trades on both, against 49.4% and 42.1% across all 32 questions. Licensed or insured came in at 13.7% against 34.2%, and family or locally owned at 27.3% against 35.8%. Even years in business, its most-mentioned lawn item, trailed at 37.7% against 43.3%, while advice to get several quotes came out about level (17.0% against 14.1%).

Put those credentials and promises on the branch page so customers and engines can read them; Day 3 below lists the details. Treatment branches should add the state license where the work needs one. The EPA says federal law requires certification to apply or supervise the use of restricted use pesticides (RUPs), and that many states require every commercial applicator to be certified, including those who never use RUPs (EPA).

If you bought a branch, say who owns it today, drop "family-owned" or "locally owned" copy that stopped being true at the sale, and give the year that branch started serving customers.

ChatGPT's guarantee mentions in lawn answers went from 5% in the week of October 2 to 75.7% after October 9, alongside the new answer format. Publish the re-service or satisfaction promise each branch actually honors, including its terms, so there is a clear source for customers and AI to check.

ChatGPT links company sites and lists phone numbers, so check both

After October 9, 98.3% of US ChatGPT lawn answers linked at least one business's own or brand website, about 10 per answer, mostly local lawn and landscaping companies. The count doesn't separate a multi-branch brand's own site from the rest, so use the city check below to see yours: is the branch page linked, only the homepage, or a competitor's site?

Over the same weeks, 91.3% of ChatGPT's lawn answers carried at least one phone number. Of the US numbers ChatGPT printed in October that we could check against each business's own website, 17.6% weren't on the site, and none of the confirmed nonmatches matched the single-digit or transposition errors we checked. The share was 41.0% when the site ran a call-tracking script, against 12.1% when it didn't. Since that check covered every trade, call the number each answer shows for your branch and see who picks up.

Where to start across a branch network

Lawn sign-ups start in late winter, so January and February are the months to get each branch's listings and page right. Pick your five biggest branch cities and give them the first week. A marketing coordinator can run all of it.

• Day 1. Ask ChatGPT "who are the best lawn care and landscaping companies in [city]?" for each of the five. Note whether the branch is named, which sites the answer links, and whether the rating, review count and phone match its Business Profile and website.
• Day 2. Find each branch on Expertise.com's lawn care list for its city and on Angi, and ask for corrections where services, towns or phone don't match. Give design-build branches a complete Houzz profile with real project photos, and decide on LawnStarter like any other lead source.
• Day 3. Fix the page each branch's Business Profile links to, in plain text: current ownership, the year the branch started, services by season and the towns it serves.
• Once a season. Ask every customer at every branch for a Google review after a visit, the same way for everyone, with nothing offered, no staff quotas and no suggested wording.

By the end of the week you'll have a correction list for each branch, built from the answers homeowners actually see. For franchise lawn brands, how franchise brands get recommended by ChatGPT covers why each location needs its own page and profile.

Cheers is the done-for-you local visibility partner for established home-service companies and PE-backed portfolios. Our team manages your Google Business Profiles, website, reviews, directory listings, local pages and AI search visibility, so you get found on Google and Maps and recommended by AI.

Method

The Cheers Market Baseline is our own research panel: every week it asks ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini the same 32 home-service questions in 100 metro areas, 60 in the US and 40 in Canada, and records what each engine names and links. This piece uses one question, "who are the best lawn care and landscaping companies?", asked on October 7, 14, 21 and 28, 2026. Perplexity isn't in this edition.

Source shares cover US answers with at least one recorded source: 237 of 240 for ChatGPT, 237 of 240 for Google AI Mode and 119 of 240 for Gemini. A site counts once per answer, wherever its link appears, and Angi with HomeAdvisor and LawnStarter with Lawn Love each count as one. "Other 31 questions" means the same engine, US cities and month for every other question: 7,863 ChatGPT, 7,942 AI Mode and 4,507 Gemini answers with recorded sources.

Sistrix (October 30, 2026) puts ChatGPT's block layout on the night of October 8 to 9 and the return of its end-of-answer source list on October 23. We count every site linked anywhere in an answer, including inside ChatGPT's per-business blocks. Across all 32 questions, Expertise.com fell from 76.4% of ChatGPT answers to 49.2% in the week of October 26, but that week covers only October 26 to 31 and each panel day runs different questions, so the lawn question's October 28 run is the like-for-like reading. In the answers our panel captured, Gemini's place-card answers fell away during October, and 53 of its 119 answers with recorded sources come from October 28, so its shares lean on that week.

Answer-text shares cover all 100 US and Canadian cities: 300 answers per engine from October 9 to 31 (10,506 Gemini answers across all 32 questions) and 100 from October 2 to 8, counted with fixed phrase patterns that also match general hiring advice. A rating or review count has to appear as a number anywhere in the answer, not necessarily beside a given business. "A business's own or brand website" excludes Google, directory and list sites, marketplaces (LawnStarter and Lawn Love included), social media, booking tools, government, manufacturers, retailers and media. It includes franchise brand sites and some domains we couldn't classify, and after October 9 rests on 179 ChatGPT and 178 AI Mode lawn answers (6,105 AI Mode answers to the other 31).

The review medians (Google AI Mode) and the franchise share (four engines, Perplexity included) come from August 31 to September 20, 2026, in 100 US and Canadian cities. The phone check covers 900 numbers from ChatGPT answers between October 2 and 31, 2026, across every trade; on November 1, 66 of 374 checkable US numbers weren't on the business's site in the pages we checked.

With one question per trade, gaps under about 6 points at 237 answers, or about 9 at Gemini's 119, are ties. Contractor and franchise domains are counted, never named. These findings describe this question in these cities, not how any engine ranks businesses; the research methodology page explains how the panel runs.

Sources

• Our selection process, Expertise.com, undated. How Expertise.com picks and reviews providers.
• LawnStarter Acquires Lawn Love to Create Powerhouse Marketplace for On-Demand Outdoor Services, LawnStarter, August 3, 2021. LawnStarter's 2021 purchase of Lawn Love.
• What Is LawnStarter and How Does It Work? (Complete Guide), LawnStarter, updated August 7, 2026. How LawnStarter assigns a provider.
• Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Google Business Profile Help, undated. Service-area and one-profile-per-location rules.
• Nearly Half of Consumers are Asking AI for Business Recommendations, BrightLocal, March 10, 2026. How often AI users check reviews.
• Prohibited and restricted content, Google Maps user contributed content policy, undated. Google's rules for asking for reviews.
• How to Get Certified as a Pesticide Applicator, US Environmental Protection Agency, March 11, 2026. Pesticide applicator certification rules.
• What changed in ChatGPT in October: GPT-6, UTM tracking and sources, Sistrix, October 30, 2026. Dates of ChatGPT's October layout changes.

Sources read November 1, 2026.

Dylan Allen-Arnegård is the CEO & Co-Founder of Cheers, the done-for-you local visibility partner for established home-service companies and PE-backed portfolios.