Fundamentals · 8 min read · September 26, 2026 · Hafsa Tariq, gaash.ai
Which move were you named for? Reading AI answers by route and move type
A moving company has no single AI visibility. An answer names it, or leaves it out, for one move: a kind of move, a route with two ends and a date window, asked by someone who may live at the far end. Measure it the same way, with questions by move type and route asked from both ends, and a record of which move each answer named you for.
Why a mover's visibility is counted one move at a time
Take a question such as "movers from Toronto to Calgary for a two-bedroom at the end of June". Before it mentions any company it holds a kind of move, a route with two ends and a date window. With web search on, an AI assistant reads a handful of pages before it answers, and what it can state accurately about your company for that route is limited to what those pages, and what the model already holds, say about it.
So a company can be named for local apartment moves and never for the long-distance route it wants more of, or the other way round. A single number for the whole company would hide both. The reading that helps a mover has a row per move: the kind of move, the route, and the end the question comes from.
The one large measurement we have published is sample-wide. In the probe beside our audit of 9,483 small business websites, Claude answered one buyer question per business with web retrieval on, and 14.9% of 9,240 businesses were named. That was one question on one day across 40 trades: a Claude figure and a direction, not a rate, and it says nothing about movers on their own.
The person asking may be at the other end of the route
A long-distance move has two ends, and the household can be at either. Someone in Chicago who has taken a job in Denver may ask for Denver movers, for Chicago movers, or for movers "from Chicago to Denver", and a Denver company that runs the route would like to be named for all three. "Near me" means nothing to a person asking from the far end, so the question names places, and the places are what your pages have to state.
That changes what a reading has to cover. A panel written only from your own city tests the questions your neighbors ask. The inbound move, asked at the origin by someone who has never heard of you, is a different question, and so is the cross-border move asked from the other country. Each one gets its own line.
The facts each route turns on, from the pricing basis to storage, are listed in the overview for moving companies, and the pages a household planning from far away reads, in the order of the move, are in the pages for a move planned from far away. This article is about reading the answers.
Named, recommended and first, for one move
Three marks can be given to any answer, one move question at a time; our methodology records two of them, named and first.
- Named: your company appears anywhere in the answer to that question, under any spelling of its name, whatever the answer says about it.
- Recommended: the answer puts you forward as a suitable choice for that move, which is an AI recommendation rather than a passing mention or a warning.
- First: yours is the first company the reader meets, at the top of a list or first in the prose.
For a mover, one more question sits under all three: which move the answer named you for. An answer to a long-distance question that calls you "a good local option" has named you, but not for the move that was asked, and a record that says only "named" hides the difference.
The visibility score on the methodology page is built from the first mark alone: the share of the twelve questions that named the company, from 0 to 100. Why a panel you run yourself should ask each question more than once is in the article on prompt monitoring.
A panel by move type, route and the end it is asked from
Write each line the way a household would type it, with the places named, and give it three labels: the move type, the route (local, long distance or cross-border) and the end it is asked from. Each line is one prompt. How many routes to include is the first of the common questions at the end.
| Move type | Route | Asked from | Example line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local household | Local | Your city | "movers for a [2]-bedroom apartment in [your city] at the end of [month]" |
| Long-distance household | Long distance, outbound | Your city | "long distance movers from [your city] to [destination] for a [3]-bedroom house" |
| Long-distance household | Long distance, inbound | The far end | "moving from [origin city] to [your city], who can do the whole move" |
| Cross-border household | Cross-border | Either end | "movers from [your city] to [city across the border] who handle the border" |
| Office | Local or long distance | Your city | "office movers in [your city] for [n] desks over a weekend" |
| Single item | Local | Your city | "piano movers in [your city] and what it costs" |
| Storage | Local | Your city | "movers in [your city] with storage for [n] weeks between homes" |
| Your name | Any | Either end | "does [your company] do fixed-price moves to [destination]" |
Once the first reading is taken, leave the lines alone so that each month can be set against the last. A new route becomes a new line with its own start date. The file, the runs and the base record are in the prompt monitoring article; what follows is what a mover adds to it.
Four columns a mover adds to each record
Each answer's record starts with the usual fields: named, recommended, first, the other companies named, and the answer kept verbatim with its date, assistant and run. A mover adds four columns, and each one compares what the answer said with what your own pages say.
| Column | What to write | Compare it with |
|---|---|---|
| Move named | The move the answer names you for: the one asked, a different one ("local only"), or none | Your services and routes pages |
| Pricing basis | What the answer says about how you price (fixed, hourly, an estimate) and what the price includes, in the answer's words | Your quote terms page |
| Licenses | What the answer says you hold, and where, in its words; "none stated" if it says nothing | Your licenses as issued, with numbers and dates |
| Page cited | The address of any page the answer links or quotes, yours or another site's; "none shown" if there is none | The page of yours that states the fact |
Write down the answer's words, not your reading of them. "Charges one set price" and "fixed price after a video survey" may describe one thing or two, and the verbatim copy lets someone check the verdict later. Act on a mismatch in the pricing or licenses column first: a household that books on a wrong term meets it on moving day.
Reading the first month's rows
The first reading is a baseline, not a verdict: it shows where you stand for each move, and the months after show whether that changes. Five patterns are worth a second look, each with the place to start.
| What the rows show | Where to start |
|---|---|
| Named on local lines, absent on inbound long-distance lines | Whether any page names the route and the far end in text, not only your own city |
| Named with the wrong pricing basis | The page cited: an old price page, a directory listing, a copy of your site on another host |
| A license missing or stated wrongly | Your licenses as issued, and whether a page gives the number, where it is valid and its dates |
| Named but not recommended | The verbatim answer, for the reason it gives or the caution it attaches |
| Named from one end of a route and not the other | Whether your pages describe the move from the far end: pickup, the drive, delivery |
None of these patterns says why an assistant wrote what it did, and no operator documents how its assistant chooses. They say where to look. When an answer states something false about you, the article on wrong facts in answers traces it to a source. Reading the same panel each month through the busy season, beside your quote requests, is the subject of AI readings through the moving year.
Common questions
How many routes should the panel cover?
As many as a person can read carefully each month. Take the routes from last year's booked moves, by origin and destination, add the one or two you want more of, and write each long-distance route twice, once from each end. Then keep them: a line that comes and goes has no history, and routes rotated in and out leave nothing to compare.
An answer called us a local mover when the question was long distance. Does that count?
It counts as named, and the move-named column says "local". That row tells you more than a clean miss, because the answer has your name and the wrong move beside it, and both point at pages you can check. Look for a page that states the route in text with both ends named, and for a directory listing that still describes you as local only.
Can an answer know whether we have a truck free on a given date?
Not from your pages, because no page holds your calendar. A page can state how far ahead you book in the busy season, whether you take short-notice moves, which days you move, and whether the last days of a month cost more. An answer to a question with a date in it then has a stated fact to repeat instead of nothing.
Another mover's name is close to ours. How do we record a mix-up?
Mark it as not named, keep the answer, and note which facts in it are yours and which are theirs. A mix-up can start wherever your identity is loose: a trading name that differs from the legal name, an old address, a phone number shared with a past business. Put your legal name, trading name, address and number in one form on every page and listing.
Sources
The 14.9% figure is this site's own probe, one question per business put to Claude once across all 40 trades; it is directional and says nothing about movers alone. The scoring, and the named and first marks it rests on, are the ones our methodology page states; every panel line is a template.
Sources: our audit of 9,483 small-business sites, with its method · how the visibility score is measured
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