On 27 and 28 September 2026 we asked Perplexity "best <profession> in <town>, UK" and logged every answer: 496 answers to 456 distinct questions, covering 105 professions.
How it was measured
Each answer was saved with the firms it named and the source links shown inside the answer text. Perplexity ran in basic mode and we did not expand the full source panel, so the counts below are the links visible in the answer itself.
What we found
- Answers name a handful of firms. The median answer named 5 firms (range 0 to 14). Only 3 of 496 answers named no firm at all.
- Directories and review sites appear in most answers, but rarely dominate them. 410 of 496 answers (about 4 in 5) cited at least one directory or review site (Yell, Bark, Trustpilot, thebestof and similar). Only 8 of 496 answers drew more than half of their sources from them.
- The most-cited sites. trustpilot.com appeared in 190 answers, yell.com in 87, yelp.com in 82, whatclinic.com in 60, checkatrade.com in 59, and doctify.com, fresha.com and trustatrader.com in 54 each (of 496).
- In the five professions we asked about most, one site leads. Physiotherapists: fresha.com in 31 of 55 answers. Accountants: businessfinancing.co.uk in 26 of 48. Dentists: bestdentists.uk and mynextdentist.co.uk in 21 of 31 each. Estate agents: getagent.co.uk in 24 of 26. Architects: houzz.co.uk in 23 of 25.
- Official registers show up. 59 of 496 answers cited a professional register, regulator or Companies House page (ICAEW, SRA, CQC, FCA, RIBA's Find an Architect and similar). Separately, nhs.uk appeared in 41 answers, more than Facebook or Instagram (38) and far more than Reddit (3).
- Google Maps never appeared in the answer text. 0 of 496 answers linked to Google Maps; one linked to a Google Business page.
- "Best of" list pages show up. 52 of the 250 answers for which we had full source URLs cited a page whose address contains "best" or "top", mostly directory list pages.
- The same question gives a different list a few hours later. 40 questions were asked twice on 28 September, about 3 hours apart. Only 3 of the 40 pairs named the same firms; on average 48% of the firms named in a pair appeared in both answers. Of 324 named firms across those pairs, 179 appeared in only one of the two answers.
What this means for a local business
- If your profession is one of the five in point 4, check your listing on the site that leads for it: in our sample it was the source cited most often for that profession.
- If your profession has a register or regulator listing, make sure your entry there is complete and current (point 5).
- Being named once is not a result. Because lists change between runs (point 8), visibility has to be measured repeatedly, not checked once.
Limits
One engine (Perplexity), one country (UK), two days. Basic mode with inline citations only; the full source panel was not expanded. The SEO-agency runs we also made (30 cities) are a separate study and are not included in these numbers.