No single directory: the AI cited 5,774 different sources

Short answer: ask Perplexity, the one assistant that shows its sources, for a plumber, and the names come with links. Across 1,364 answers asked in France, the United Kingdom and Brazil, those links pointed to 5,774 different sites. The most-cited one, reddit.com, carries under 4%. There is no single directory to get listed on.

You want to know where to appear so the AI finds you. You picture a directory - one place where you pay for your line and the assistants come and read. The numbers say it does not exist. To cover half of the 21,571 links the assistant cited, you would need 343 different sites. And the source it cites most is not the same from one country to the next: Reddit in the United Kingdom, Instagram in Brazil, ThreeBestRated in France.

The names come from thousands of scattered places, and the one cited most is a forum, not a directory.

What was measured

We went back to the eight Waseit studies, but looked at a field we had not used yet: the sources. Of the three assistants, Perplexity is the only one that returns the web pages it consulted. ChatGPT and Gemini, asked through their programming interface without web search, returned no sources at all, so this article is about the one engine that shows its work. Perplexity answered 1,364 times, in France, the United Kingdom and Brazil, between 30 July and 16 October 2026, each time in the country's language. Those answers carried 21,571 links. We reduced each link to its site (dropping the www) and counted.

Is there one directory to get listed on?

No. The 21,571 links point to 5,774 different sites. The most-cited one, reddit.com, carries 3.9% - and that is almost entirely the United Kingdom: 628 of its 832 citations are British, against 14 in France. To cover a quarter of the links you need 48 sites; half, 343; three quarters, 1,899. And 2,358 sites - four in ten - are cited exactly once in the whole corpus. The leader changes with each country. There is no shared list, and the most-cited source, Reddit, is not a directory: it is a place where people discuss, not one where you pay for a line.

What it means if you are the business

You cannot pay for one line in one directory and be done, because no single directory carries the answer on its own. What the assistant draws on is a long tail: a handful of directories (Checkatrade, ThreeBestRated, Yell, GetNinjas), social accounts (Instagram, Facebook) and, more than any of them, discussion (Reddit). Being present in many places, and being talked about, does more than one perfect listing. And the places that matter are not universal: they change with your country, your trade and your city. We counted where the links lead; we did not test whether being listed on any one of them makes you cited more often - that we did not measure. We looked before at which sources the AI reads; today we count how many there are.

And your business - where does the AI look for you?

The free Waseit audit asks ChatGPT and Gemini the questions your customers really type, in their language and for your city, and reads the answers one by one. When Gemini searches Google, the report shows the pages it actually consulted - that is, where to get referenced for your trade and your city, rather than a one-size-fits-all list. In about 60 seconds you get a score out of 100, the competitors named instead of you, and the questions where you do not appear. Free, no account and no card; an email only unlocks the competitor names and the action plan. It is a dated snapshot, not a ranking: the answers change from one day to the next, and we promise no position.

What this does not prove

• Only Perplexity exposes the pages it consulted. ChatGPT and Gemini, asked without web search, returned no sources here, so this says nothing about where they take their names; and Perplexity was asked in only three countries (France, the United Kingdom, Brazil). It is a limit of what each surface shows, not a measure of the other two.
• One capture, between 30 July and 16 October 2026, each question asked once. AI answers change from day to day: the exact sites and their order would differ on another day.
• A cited page is a page the engine consulted, not proof that the business on it is better, nor proof of where a name came from. We counted sites, not their quality.
• Reddit being the most-cited source overall does not make it the most-cited for your trade or your city - it is almost entirely the United Kingdom. The whole point is that the distribution is local.
• We reduced each link to its site after dropping the www, so a platform's subdomains may count together or apart; and we did not test whether a listing anywhere makes a business named more often.