Which sites Perplexity cites for UK local businesses

We asked Perplexity 158 plain questions such as "best plumber in Poole, UK" and "best toy shop in Milton Keynes, UK", and logged every source it listed. For local services, a directory showed up in every answer we ran in basic mode. For shops the sources were more mixed, with more travel guides and more websites of other businesses.

Method and limitations are at the end.

What we asked

158 questions across 155 UK towns and 79 kinds of business: 29 local services (plumber, electrician, locksmith, tree surgeon, estate agent and others) and 50 kinds of shop. Each question ran once, on 27 September 2026. Perplexity named 4.2 businesses per answer on average (median 4). Two answers, both for local services, named no business at all.

Across the 158 answers Perplexity listed 2,132 sources from 1,390 different domains.

Local services: directories in every answer

In basic mode we ran 103 local-service questions. All 103 answers cited at least one directory or review site, and directories made up 41% of all sources in those answers.

Trustpilot counts include its country subdomains such as uk.trustpilot.com. News sites and city guides were rare for services: they appeared in 15 of the 103 basic-mode answers.

Shops: a mixed picture

Shop answers leaned less on directories. In the 39 shop questions we ran in basic mode, 34 answers cited a directory, but directories were only 21% of the sources. The largest share, 45%, was the websites of other businesses that the answer did not name. Travel and city guides appeared in 21 of the 39 answers.

The named business's own site matters too

In 151 of the 158 answers, at least one of the named businesses' own websites was among the sources. So the directories do not replace your site: most answers cite both.

What to do if you run a local business

1. Ask Perplexity the question your customers ask, with your trade and your town in it, and look at the source list, not only the names.
2. For a service business, check your profiles on the directories it cites: the same business name, address, phone number and services as on your website. For a shop, also check local and travel guides for your town.
3. Make your own site say plainly what you do and where. It is cited alongside the directories in most answers.
4. Ask more than once. These are single runs; the next run may name different businesses.

Method and limitations

• Engine: Perplexity only. We also track Google AI Overviews; this study covers Perplexity.
• 159 answers were collected; one was excluded because it described a different place with the same name, leaving 158.
• One run per question, all on 27 September 2026. A single run is not a stable ranking.
• 142 answers used Perplexity's basic mode and 16 used extended search. Extended answers listed far fewer sources, 5.5 on average against 14.4 in basic mode, so we compare shops and services, and build both tables, on basic-mode answers only. 15 of the 16 extended answers were about shops.
• Sources are grouped by rules on the domain name into seven groups: directories and review sites; the named businesses' own sites; other business sites; news and guides; official bodies and trade associations; national chains; social networks and marketplaces. In a manual check of 100 random domains from the "other business sites" group, 81 were business websites; the rest were small directories, local media and travel sites. The share of directories is therefore more likely understated than overstated.
• We do not name any small business in this study. The per-answer data, without business names, is in answers-public.csv: every number on this page can be recalculated from it, except the manual check of 100 domains above. The script and the source-level table are available on request.

We run this kind of check for clients every month. If you want to see what Perplexity says about your business today, request a free check.