AI search optimization in Crown Heights.

What this is

Signal does AI search optimization and local SEO for independent practices in Crown Heights: the work of being the practice ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Claude names when a patient here asks who to see. It’s the method on AI search optimization, applied to one neighbourhood, with a named case of its own: Nostrand Optical, on Nostrand Avenue.

What four AI engines said about Crown Heights, 2–4 October 2026

Between 2 and 4 October 2026, Signal asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude who the best optometrist, physical therapist and chiropractor in Crown Heights is. Across the 12 answers they named 24 different practices and practitioners, and every answer named at least one.

Only 5 of the 24 were named by more than one engine. For physical therapy, all four engines named the same practice. For optometry, three did. For chiropractors, no practice was named by more than two engines, and five of the six pairs of engines had no chiropractor in common.

Asked 2–4 Oct 2026: ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude on 2 Oct, Perplexity on 4 Oct. Counts only; Signal doesn’t publish the names. Not a ranking.

The question	Practices named	Named by 2+ engines	Most engines naming one practice
Who’s the best optometrist in Crown Heights, Brooklyn?	9	1	3 of 4
Who’s the best physical therapist in Crown Heights, Brooklyn?	5	3	4 of 4
Who’s the best chiropractor in Crown Heights, Brooklyn?	10	1	2 of 4
All three	24	5	—

The engines read different things to get there. Zocdoc was among the sources behind 10 of the 12 answers, and practices’ own websites behind 11. 17 of the 20 sources Gemini cited were practice websites. ChatGPT read 113 sources for its three answers, and 36 of them were Reddit threads. 18 of the 28 pages Claude read were Yelp search results.

Not every name was in Crown Heights. Six of the 24 were placed by an engine itself on the border or in a neighbouring area: Fort Greene, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Flatbush, Clinton Hill.

When a patient names the neighbourhood, the engines go looking for pages that say the neighbourhood. That’s what a practice’s site can supply: plain statements of where it is, what it treats, and who it sees.

ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude were asked on 2 October 2026 and Perplexity on 4 October 2026, each question once per engine, through the provider’s API, with web search on and the searcher placed in Crown Heights. API answers approximate what a person sees in the apps; they aren’t identical. Perplexity’s API answered with an OpenAI model on Perplexity’s own search. Signal counted the practices named in each answer by hand; a practitioner named with a practice counts as the practice. This is a sample from those days, not a ranking, and Signal doesn’t publish the names. The same questions are asked again each month.

The questions are frozen and asked again on the 1st of each month. New results will be added here with their dates, and this October 2026 baseline stays on the page.

Why the answers differ, and what a practice can change

Each assistant searched different places for the same question: forum threads and insurers’ provider lists for one, directory listings and review pages for another, practices’ own websites for a third. So the same patient, asking the same thing, gets a different shortlist depending on the app they opened. No practice controls that.

What a practice does control is what those places say about it. An assistant can only repeat a fact it can find, so the facts have to be written down, plainly and identically, wherever it looks:

• Where you are, in words. “Crown Heights,” the cross streets, the nearest station, and which side of Eastern Parkway, in text on the site, not only on a map.
• What you treat and who you see. One page per service, written in the words patients use, with the ages, conditions and plans you actually take.
• Hours and insurance, matched everywhere. The site, the Google Business Profile, Zocdoc, Yelp and Healthgrades should agree. See which profile fields decide which prompts you’re eligible for and how to mark up business hours.
• The same facts in structured data. LocalBusiness with the most specific accurate subtype, openingHoursSpecification, and FAQ markup that matches the visible text. The background is on What is GEO?

Crown Heights’ corridors, and how patients describe where you are

NYC Small Business Services’ Crown Heights Commercial District Needs Assessment, an Avenue NYC study with the Bridge Street Development Corporation, looked at Utica, Kingston, Nostrand and Franklin Avenues between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway, and at Atlantic Avenue between Franklin and Utica. Those are the neighbourhood’s commercial streets.

Eastern Parkway runs across the neighbourhood, with subway stations at Franklin, Nostrand, Kingston and Utica Avenues. The Nostrand Avenue Line stops at President Street and Sterling Street, and the Franklin Avenue Shuttle at Park Place and Botanic Garden. Crown Heights is usually drawn from Washington Avenue to Ralph Avenue and from Atlantic Avenue to Empire Boulevard, though sources draw it differently.

Patients don’t type a ZIP code. They type a street or a stop. The prompts below are illustrations of that kind of question, not measured search data:

Illustrations of prompt shapes, not search volumes.

The prompt	What the assistant has to find	Where it goes
optometrist near the Nostrand Av stop	The nearest station and cross streets	Contact page and footer, in text; the address in LocalBusiness markup
physical therapist on Eastern Parkway that takes no-fault	The address, and whether no-fault is accepted	The insurance page (physical therapists)
chiropractor near Franklin Ave open Saturday	Saturday hours	openingHoursSpecification, matched by the Business Profile hours (chiropractors)
eye exam for kids near Kingston Ave	The ages seen, and the street	The pediatric exam page (optometrists)

The border matters too. Six of the names the engines gave for Crown Heights were, by the engines’ own description, on its edge or outside it. A practice near Prospect Heights, Flatbush or Bed-Stuy should say plainly which neighbourhood it’s in, and name the neighbouring one only if that’s true.

The named case on Nostrand Avenue

Nostrand Optical — optometry. An independent practice on Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and a Signal client. Signal rebuilt the site with LocalBusiness, MedicalBusiness and FAQPage markup, and validated four rich-result types in Google’s Rich Results Test on launch day, with zero errors. The full write-up shows what was built and what is on record. The live site is nostrandoptical.com.

Its prompts were checked by hand on 8 Sep 2026, before the neighbourhood questions above and separately from them. Each row is one check on one day, and the misses sit next to the hits:

Single-day spot checks, 8 Sep 2026. Not a rate, not a promise. Transcripts and screenshots on the evidence ledger.

Checked	Engine	Prompt	Result
8 Sep 2026	ChatGPT	optometrist in Crown Heights Brooklyn that takes Medicaid	Cited — second of four named, with the correct address and phone
8 Sep 2026	Perplexity	optometrist in Crown Heights Brooklyn that takes Medicaid	Cited — named first; nostrandoptical.com was the cited source
8 Sep 2026	Google AI Overviews	optometrist in Crown Heights Brooklyn that takes Medicaid	Cited — one of two practices listed; both sources were Nostrand’s own pages
8 Sep 2026	Gemini	optometrist in Crown Heights Brooklyn that takes Medicaid	Not cited
8 Sep 2026	ChatGPT	eye doctor near Nostrand Avenue Brooklyn open Saturday	Cited — first of five, with Saturday hours quoted from the site
8 Sep 2026	ChatGPT	best optometrist in Brooklyn	Not cited — the six practices named were all rated 4.7–4.9 with 179–564 reviews

The Medicaid and Saturday prompts name Crown Heights or Nostrand Avenue. “Best optometrist in Brooklyn” doesn’t, and it’s a miss: ratings and review volume decided that answer, and a website can’t buy that. The evidence ledger is the record; the industry version of this case is AI search optimization for optometrists.

For optometrists, physical therapists and chiropractors in Crown Heights

Optometry. Asked about Crown Heights, the four engines named 9 practices and optometrists, and three of the engines named the same one. An assistant answering an eye-care question here needs the plans you take, plan by plan, and the exams you do, on pages it can quote. More on AI search optimization for optometrists.

Physical therapy. The one question where all four engines named the same practice, out of 5 names in all. A Crown Heights physical therapy practice’s pages need to say where it is and what it takes: direct access, no-fault and workers’ comp, stated from New York’s rules. More on AI search optimization for physical therapists.

Chiropractic. The answers scattered: 10 names, none named by more than two engines. When the shortlist moves that much between assistants, the facts that decide whether you fit a patient (what you treat within scope, insurance and no-fault, hours) have to be on your own pages, written within New York’s advertising rules. More on AI search optimization for chiropractors.

How the work runs, and what it costs

• 1. A free AI search check. Send a two-minute form; I ask the AI assistants what a patient in your area would ask, and reply in writing within one business day with what they answer and who they name. Get your free AI check.
• 2. Written findings. If the findings point to work worth doing, I’ll propose it. If they don’t, you keep the audit and I’ll say so.
• 3. The build — from $2,500. The site, the structured data, the Business Profile, the listings. Larger builds — multiple locations, 12+ pages — go up to $5,000.
• 4. The retainer — from $650 a month. Site care, fixes and changes, Search Console and indexing oversight, gated articles under your business’s byline, reporting, and the evidence ledger kept current.

Every prompt about your practice goes on the evidence ledger, cited or not. The number is in writing before anything starts. The package is on the homepage.

Questions Crown Heights practices ask

Why don’t you name the practices the AI engines listed?

Because a few days’ answers aren’t a ranking, and this page isn’t about other practices. The counts, sources and dates are what’s useful: they show how much the answers move between assistants.

Is Nostrand Optical a Signal client?

Yes. Signal rebuilt nostrandoptical.com; four rich-result types were validated in Google’s Rich Results Test on launch day. It’s the named case on this page.

Will the results on this page change?

Yes. The same three questions are asked again every month, word for word. New rows are added with their dates; the October 2026 baseline stays.

Do you only work with practices in Crown Heights?

No. Signal is based in Brooklyn and available to practices across New York City, Long Island, Northern New Jersey and Fairfield County, Connecticut. The Brooklyn page has the borough-wide picture.

Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend us?

No, and be careful of anyone who says they can. Signal builds the pages an assistant needs in order to name you, then records what the assistants actually return, by prompt and by date, on the public evidence ledger, including the prompts where you aren’t named. You see the same rows I do.

What’s the difference between AI search optimization, AI SEO, GEO and local SEO?

AI search optimization, AI SEO and GEO (generative engine optimization) are three names for the same work: making a business something AI assistants can find, trust and quote. Local SEO is the older discipline of showing up in Google’s local results and map listings. For a practice the two overlap heavily, because both depend on the same facts stated the same way everywhere. There’s a longer explanation on the What is GEO? page.