What Google shows for Portland heating
On September 6, 2026, Google's map for "hvac portland" showed AAA Heating & Cooling on 1,400 reviews, Jacobs Heating & Air Conditioning on 656, and Efficiency Heating & Cooling on 485. All three say Open 24 hours. Under them, Bull Mountain Heating & Cooling is paying for the sponsored slot, and its listing says closed until Monday.
The blue links for "furnace repair portland" tell a second story. Portland Heating & Air Conditioning ranks second on a site with a domain rating of 8, because it has a page written for furnace repair. Then Yelp, a Reddit thread, and Trane's dealer locator, and under those, Jacobs, Specialty Heating, and A-Temp, each on a page about furnace repair alone. A directory outranking a heating company for its own service usually means the page Google wants is missing from that company's site.
What ChatGPT reads before it names a heating company
ChatGPT does not open the map. On September 7, 2026, I asked it for the best HVAC company in Portland, Oregon. It named Specialty Heating & Cooling first, on a Birdeye profile of 4.8 to 4.9 stars from about 1,900 reviews, then Sunset Heating & Cooling on about 4,900 reviews, Sky Heating & Air Conditioning on about 1,700, Pyramid Heating & Cooling from an Expertise listing, and Comfort Connection from ConsumerAffairs and Yelp. None of the five are in Google's three-pack. AAA, Jacobs, and Efficiency, the three companies on the map, are absent from the answer.
Then I asked who to call for quotes. It gave four phone numbers, Specialty, Sky, Pyramid, and Sunset, linked each company's own website, and told me to ask each one for an itemized quote with model numbers, the labor warranty, the parts warranty, and any Energy Trust of Oregon rebate. The records it verifies against for a heating company are the review aggregators, the Oregon CCB license, the Energy Trust trade ally listing, and the company's own site, which supplies the fee, the after-hours line, the services by name, and the towns. A furnace that quits at eleven at night produces the question "who can come tonight and what does it cost," and ChatGPT answers it from whichever sites state both. Getting a heating company onto those records is the GEO half of my SEO, GEO, and AEO services.
Gemini reads the map
Gemini, asked the same question the same day, did the opposite. It named AAA Heating & Cooling and Efficiency Heating & Cooling, two of the three companies in Google's three-pack, and it showed each one as a Google business listing: the 4.9 rating, the Open label, and the category, which for both companies reads General contractor instead of HVAC contractor. Asked who to call for quotes, it added Anctil and Comfort Solutions and put all four on a map. Its reasons came from the reviews on those profiles: free estimates, rebate help, straightforward pricing.
So the two engines are two different games. ChatGPT reads the review aggregators, the license records, and your own website. Gemini reads your Google Business Profile, the same profile that decides the map. A heating company has to win both, and the profile work that moves the map is also the work that gets Gemini to name you. The category on those two profiles is a free fix that neither company has made.
The searches, and when they arrive
Furnace repair near me averages 138,000 searches a month and runs three times that spread across the year: 59,000 in June, 189,000 in October, 193,000 in January. The Portland version is 500 a month at a difficulty of one and a $55 click. Google shows an AI Overview on the troubleshooting and cost questions: furnace not turning on, furnace not blowing hot air, furnace tune up cost, heat pump vs furnace. A page that answers each in one sentence is the page Google quotes in October and the page the AI names you from. How that AI Overview picks its sources is the same for every trade.
| Search | Volume | Difficulty | CPC |
|---|---|---|---|
| furnace repair near me | 138,000 | 68 | $6 |
| air duct cleaning near me | 79,000 | 17 | $5 |
| dryer vent cleaning near me | 24,000 | 0 | $6 |
| heat pump vs furnace | 5,300 | 4 | $0.04 |
| emergency furnace repair near me | 2,700 | 0 | $0.30 |
| furnace not turning on | 2,400 | 0 | $0.80 |
| furnace tune up cost | 1,500 | 1 | $8 |
| furnace installation portland | 700 | 2 | $11 |
| furnace repair portland | 500 | 1 | $55 |
| heat pump installation portland | 300 | 1 | $19 |
The heating-specific steps
The general checklist is in the post on getting ChatGPT to recommend your business. These are the parts that carry more weight for a heating and cooling company, in the order I would do them before October.
- The service call fee, in text, with the conditions. State the diagnostic fee, what it covers, and whether it is waived when the repair is approved. The electrician answer ranked five companies on this one fact and put the company without it last. Furnace tune up cost is 1,500 searches a month with an AI Overview.
- The after-hours line, in the same words everywhere. All three companies in the Portland map say Open 24 hours. Emergency furnace repair near me is 2,700 searches a month at a difficulty of zero. If you answer at night, the profile, the site, and every directory say so identically. If you stop at five, say that too, and the AI routes the midnight call elsewhere on purpose. The plumber answer routed weekend emergencies the same way.
- NATE and the Energy Trust trade ally listing. These are the credentials the AI can check for a heating company, the way it checks the CCB for a roofer. Name the certified technicians on the site and keep the trade ally listing current.
- The heat pump page with the rebate on it. Heat pump vs furnace is 5,300 searches a month with an AI Overview, and heat pump installation portland is a $19 click at a difficulty of one. One page carries the comparison, the rebate amount, and the trade ally credential.
- One page per service and per city. Furnace repair, furnace replacement, heat pump installation, duct cleaning, dryer vents, emergency. Portland, Beaverton, Gresham, Lake Oswego, Vancouver. The DR 8 site ranking second for furnace repair portland is one example of a page beating the authority.
- Reviews that name the repair. AAA holds the map on 1,400. Ask after every repair, and ask for the specifics: the furnace, the night, the neighborhood. The aggregators the AI reads are the same reviews Google shows.
How to check it
Ask ChatGPT the question your customer asks at eleven at night: "my furnace stopped working in Portland, who can come tonight and what does the service call cost." Then ask it who to call for quotes, and ask Gemini the same two questions. Read what each one cites for each company it names. If your company is named, open the sources and check the fee and the hours it quoted. If your company is absent, the sources it did cite are the list of places you have to be, and your own site is the first one on it. The free consultation runs both questions in both engines for your city.
Frequently asked questions
- What is GEO for HVAC companies?
- Generative engine optimization is the work of being the heating and cooling company an AI names when someone asks it for one. The answer is built from your license, your certifications, your hours, your fee, and your site, and it is asked most at night in October and January.
- Does the AI read Google's map?
- ChatGPT does not. It reads review aggregators, license records, and websites, and in Portland the five heating companies it named were all absent from Google's three-pack. Gemini does. It named two of the three map companies from their Google Business Profiles. The profile work that moves the map is the work that gets Gemini to name you, and the records and your own site are what get ChatGPT to name you.
- Should I publish the service call fee?
- Yes. The AI ranked five electricians by the visit fee each published and put the one with no fee last. A published fee with its conditions is the single fact most likely to decide the midnight call.
- How long does GEO take for a heating company?
- Most results show after three to six months, the same as the rest of the search work. The records the AI reads update on their own schedules, and I measure monthly with a fixed prompt list so the movement is visible before the calls are.
Find out who the AI names for heating in your city.
The consultation runs the prompts for heating and cooling in three engines and shows you who gets named, what was cited, and the order to fix it in. The consultation is free, and the pricing is published.