Field notes on being found by search — and by the machines that answer it

GEO / AI search 18 min read Updated 26 August 2026

Why ChatGPT cites American sources for Canadian queries

Ask a generative engine to recommend a supplier in Montréal or Toronto and look at what it names. Most of the time the sources are American. That isn’t bias, and it isn’t about your content quality — it’s about whether a model can resolve you as a Canadian entity at all. Here’s the test, the four mechanisms behind it, the schema that fixes the readable part, and the corroboration work that fixes the rest.