Generative Engine Optimization is the same discipline in every country — readable, then verifiable, then quotable. What changes per market is the language the engines search in, the directories and rankings they read, and who publishes the list that becomes the answer. We measured five markets on 5 September 2026 with one prompt each, in the language of the market, on ChatGPT and Perplexity.
| market | GEO demand / month | who writes ChatGPT’s shelf | read |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | “geo agency” 320 · “ai seo agency” 590 | a comparison site; the engine named exact-match domains with under 100 visits | cheap shelf, prices published more than elsewhere |
| Germany | “geo agentur” 1,000 · “geo seo” 2,400 | a Berlin directory that also sells GEO | the largest demand and the most specialists in Europe; German-only corpus |
| UAE and Dubai | “geo agency” 10 · “seo agency dubai” 8,100 | a Scottish agency’s 31-city guide | empty in search, populated in the engines |
| Poland | “geo seo” 390 · “agencja seo” 2,400 | an independent weekly ranking that does not sell placement | the fairest shelf we found; Polish-only corpus |
| Ukraine | “geo seo” 90 · “seo агенція” 140 | one person’s rating site; the two largest agencies absent | smallest category; most buyers sell abroad |
what changes per market, in practice
Language decides existence. Asked in German, Polish or Ukrainian, the engines cited only pages in that language. An English-only site, ours included, does not exist to those prompts. Asked in English about the UK or Dubai, they cited English pages from anywhere, including a Philadelphia agency on the British shelf and a Scottish guide on the Dubai one.
Somebody writes the list, and it is rarely a publisher. In four of five markets ChatGPT’s answer came from a single site: a comparison site, a directory run by a competitor, an agency’s city guide, a one-person rating. Only Poland’s shelf-maker measures real rankings and refuses placement. Knowing who writes the list is the first thing the audit finds out.
Demand and shelf are different things. Germany has the demand and the specialists; the UAE has eight thousand searches for an SEO agency and ten for a GEO one, and a full shelf anyway. The audit measures both, because a brand can be invisible in one and present in the other.
Each market has a matching ranked list of agencies scored on the same six criteria as our main list, with our own position and weaknesses shown. Where a market is also an industry story — Dubai real estate — the industry page goes deeper.