Press
Starworks in the news.
Coverage, the facts, and the figures, with how to quote each one accurately.
SmartCompany · Simon Thompson · 23 Sep 2026
Inside the race to get recommended by AI: the business directory cracking the code (opens in a new tab)
“offers clues about how businesses get recommended by AI”
All coverage
Including the analysis that is critical of us, which we answer in public.
- Func. digitalA six-month-old directory now beats hipages in AI answers (opens in a new tab)25 Sep 2026
- Func. digitalFour questions to put to any AI visibility claim, starting with the Starworks story (opens in a new tab)7 Oct 2026
- AivyHow a 17 year old in Melbourne cracked AI recommendations (opens in a new tab)Oct 2026
- Amina AgencySEO Web Design for AI Agents: Your Agent-Ready Checklist (opens in a new tab)Sep 2026
- Amina AgencyChatGPT for SEO Is Not Perplexity: Why One AI Number Fails (opens in a new tab)7 Oct 2026
- SEOservices.com.auAustralian Directory Tests AI Recommendations vs SEO (opens in a new tab)23 Sep 2026
Key facts
- What it is
- An Australian network of specialist business directories that AI assistants read before they name a local business.
- Founder
- Ben Adler, Melbourne
- The network
- 100+ specialist directories and city editions, 565,934 Australian businesses on the record
- AI crawler requests logged
- 1,502,750 from 12 August 2026 to 21 September 2026
- What it sells
- The Partner Program for businesses, and publishing access for agencies, both month to month
Figures you can quote, and how
Search Scope observed Starworks 199 times in its Perth study, the most cited domain after Google and Reddit.
A count of appearances in the answers it collected. Source (opens in a new tab)
In AIGROW.GG’s October index, Starworks was the website most often given as the source of a recommendation in Australian AI answers: 18% of them, more than twice the next site.
Australia only, 153 answers, in practice ChatGPT. Read in 30% of them, third after Reddit and Wikipedia. Source (opens in a new tab)
In Tyso’s October test of 390 ChatGPT answers, Starworks was the second most linked outside site, after hipages.
Links in answers that named a business. Source (opens in a new tab)
Please keep the qualifier with the figure. A citation is not a customer, and a study in one city is not a national result. How we talk about our own numbers.
Writing about AI search?
Ben can walk you through the data, the log and the method.