AI Recommends Clutch for Tech, Yelp for Local, RealSelf for Health

Ask an AI engine how to find a trustworthy plumber. It says check Yelp. Ask it about a Shopify agency. It says check Clutch. Ask about a cosmetic surgeon. It says check RealSelf.

This isn't a guess. We queried Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity 750 times across 50 commercial categories and recorded every directory they mentioned. The data is from our AI Citation Study, published last week. This article breaks down what the data reveals about directory visibility by industry.

The core finding: there is no universal "best directory." AI engines recommend different directories depending on the category. Businesses listed on the wrong directory for their vertical are invisible to AI search.

Local Home Services: Yelp, Then Everything Else

Yelp received 62 mentions across Local & Home Services queries. That's more than double the next directory (Angi at 30, BBB at 29). No other vertical showed this level of single-directory dominance.

The breakdown by category:

Two exceptions stood out. Electricians: Angi beat Yelp by one mention. AI engines associate electricians with licensed-contractor directories more than general review sites. Moving Companies: BBB beat Yelp. Trust signals matter more than reviews when you're handing someone your entire household.

Dog Trainers was the only local category where a niche directory (Bark, 6 mentions) outperformed the generals. If you train dogs and you're not on Bark, AI doesn't know you exist.

The Template 4 data (organic verification queries, where we asked "how would you verify this provider is legitimate?" without mentioning directories) confirmed the pattern. Yelp appeared 24 times, BBB 13, Angi 10. AI engines genuinely trust these sources for local businesses.

Tech and SaaS: Clutch and G2 Run the Table

Tech looked nothing like local services. Clutch and G2 tied at 27 mentions each. Expertise.com came in at 30 but spread thinner across categories.

The split was clean: Clutch dominated agency categories. G2 dominated software and product categories.

Cybersecurity was the outlier. MDR providers got pointed to Gartner (4) and Forrester (3) alongside G2. AI engines treat security as an analyst-driven market, not a review-driven one. The same pattern appeared for Virtual CISO Services: Expertise led at 10 mentions, with Gartner at 2.

Template 4 confirmed the split. When asked "how do you verify a tech provider?", AI engines recommended Trustpilot (15), G2 (13), and Clutch (11). For tech, trust verification runs through product review sites, not local review sites.

Professional Services: Expertise.com Dominates, Legal Gets Its Own Stack

Expertise.com crushed this vertical with 46 mentions. Nothing else came close (Clutch at 23 was a distant second).

But the real story was legal. Lawyers have their own directory ecosystem that AI engines fully recognise.

Personal Injury Lawyers is the only category in the entire study where Avvo and Martindale topped the list. AI engines know that legal directories carry weight that Yelp doesn't for this vertical. If you're a PI firm spending money on Yelp ads but not claiming your Avvo profile, you're optimising for the wrong platform.

DesignRush appeared twice for Branding agencies. It's the only category where DesignRush registered at all. Niche directories get niche recognition.

Health and Wellness: Three Directories Own Three Niches

Health was the most fragmented vertical. No single directory dominated the way Yelp does for local or Clutch does for tech.

Three niches, three directories. RealSelf owns aesthetics (cosmetic surgery + med spas). Healthgrades owns clinical healthcare (dentistry + regenerative medicine). Zocdoc owns virtual care (telehealth). Yelp fills the gaps everywhere else.

Mental Health Services had the weakest directory signals of any health category. Only 5 total directory mentions across 20 queries. AI engines struggle to recommend a verification source for therapists. This is a gap that a mental health-specific directory could fill.

Traditional B2B: Directory Desert

Traditional B2B had the least directory engagement of any vertical. 67 total mentions across 10 categories. Compare that to Local Services at 149.

Industrial Goods Manufacturers had exactly 2 directory mentions in 20 queries. That's the lowest of any category in the entire study. AI engines have almost nothing to reference when a buyer asks about industrial manufacturers.

This is the AI Blindspot in action. A $4 trillion industry. Invisible to AI. Not because the companies are small, but because they don't maintain review profiles, directory listings, or structured data that AI engines can parse.

Equipment Financing was the only B2B category where Trustpilot led. Financial trust signals matter here. Borrowers want verification before signing six-figure equipment loans.

Each AI Engine Has a Favourite Directory

The engines don't agree on which directories to recommend.

ChatGPT is the Expertise.com engine. 77 mentions, nearly 4x more than Claude (21) or Perplexity (15). If your buyers use ChatGPT and you're not on Expertise.com, you're missing 31% of the directory signal ChatGPT relies on.

Claude distributes trust more evenly. Yelp (57), BBB (36), Clutch (32), G2 (32). Claude treats multiple directories as valid trust signals rather than depending on one.

Perplexity leans Clutch and BBB. It mentioned Angi only once. If your home services business relies on Perplexity visibility, Clutch and BBB carry more weight than Angi.

The Practical Takeaway

The data maps each vertical to its "minimum viable directory stack." Here's what AI engines expect to see for each industry:

Local Home Services: Yelp + BBB + Angi. All three. Skipping any one of these reduces your visibility across at least one AI engine.

Tech & SaaS Agencies: Clutch + G2. Add Expertise.com for ChatGPT coverage. Add Gartner if you're in cybersecurity.

Tech Products & SaaS Tools: G2 + Capterra. These two cover the software review ecosystem AI engines query.

Professional Services (non-legal): Expertise.com + Clutch. These two directories account for the majority of AI directory recommendations in this vertical.

Lawyers: Avvo + Martindale + Expertise.com. The legal directory stack is unique. Yelp barely registers.

Healthcare (clinical): Healthgrades + Zocdoc. Yelp fills gaps.

Healthcare (aesthetics): RealSelf + Yelp. No substitutes.

Traditional B2B: BBB + Expertise.com + Trustpilot. This vertical needs more directory infrastructure. The data shows AI engines want to recommend directories for B2B buyers but have very few to point to.

Full data from this analysis is available in the AI Citation Study CSV download.