ChatGPT thinks my brand is a defunct 2019 startup. Two weeks into trying to fix it.
Posted my domain into GEO Tracker last week. ChatGPT confidently described my SaaS as a 'social media analytics startup from 2019 that pivoted to crypto.'
The actual 2019 startup is dead. Same name though, so GPT keeps pulling stale Wikipedia + old TechCrunch coverage instead of my live site.
What I've tried so far:
- Rewrote my About page with explicit founding date + product category in the first sentence
- Added schema.org Organization markup with foundingDate, sameAs (X, LinkedIn), description
- Submitted clarifying edits to two industry directories that listed both companies
What moved the needle (lightly): Perplexity now distinguishes us. ChatGPT still confused. Google AI Mode is hit-or-miss.
Anyone been through this 'name collision' situation? What worked?
3 replies
- Ada K.
Did you try asking ChatGPT directly where it learned about your brand? The 'where did you get this information' follow-up prompt sometimes surfaces 3-4 specific source clues. Helped me find the one industry directory that had the stale info and was the likely culprit.
- Petr VlčekFounder
Petr here — across the domains we monitor, name collision cases take on average 11-14 weeks to resolve in ChatGPT even with good disambiguation signals in place. Perplexity is usually 3-4 weeks. If you're at 2 weeks and Perplexity moved but ChatGPT hasn't, that's actually a normal timeline, not a sign the fix isn't working.
Same boat, different category. For me it was a SaaS that went bankrupt in 2021 with almost the same product name. Took 4 months to untangle. The thing that worked fastest was getting a Wikidata entry created that explicitly listed our founding date, our current LinkedIn, and a note that we are unrelated to the defunct one. Perplexity picked it up within 3 weeks. ChatGPT was much slower — closer to 8 weeks after the Wikidata entry went live.