Method

What a row is

For each question, on each run day, we send the same words to each source and log one row per source: the status, the names found in the answer, and the SHA-256 of the raw answer file. The sources are OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and Gemini (by API) and Google search.

What the status words mean

Status words: OK means an answer was logged. QUOTA_BLOCKED means the engine refused the call over its quota. FAILED means the call did not complete. EXTRACTION_FAILED means the response came back without readable results (in the logged rows this is Google search pages blocked by a consent wall or captcha). Every status is printed at the same size as the wins.

Names and merging

Names are extracted from each answer. Spelling variants that the Edition 1 files group together are shown as one name. Dashes and curly quotes are normalized to plain characters in names. Extraction is automatic, so some entries are headings or terms and not businesses. We log that on the corrections page.

Who entered and who dropped

Each run day is compared with the previous run day that has rows. The engines that answered OK on both days are the ones compared, so an engine skipping a day cannot look like a business dropping out.

What the counts are not

A count is not a ranking, not a score and not a promise about traffic or bookings. AI answers vary from run to run.

Check it yourself

Each CSV lists the raw file name and its SHA-256. The raw files are in the public corpus. manifest.sha256 lists the hash of every CSV on these pages.

Compiled by Terry J Carter, Carter Enterprise LLC. Page built 2026-10-09.