Türkiye GEO Map 2026: How AI-Ready Are 111,270 Business Websites?
TL;DR
The Türkiye GEO Map is a MessGEO study of how ready business websites in Türkiye are for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. We analysed 111,270 websites across 27 sectors and 81 provinces; the average AI-Readiness Score is 44.6 out of 100. Only 5 sites reach the "Excellent" level. Eight in 10 sit at the "Weak" or "Critical" level, meaning AI lacks much of what it needs to understand the business. For 7 in 10, the biggest gap is structured data, the code layer that introduces a business to AI.
Key findings at a glance
- 111,270 business websites analysed across 27 sectors and all 81 provinces, drawn from a map of 685,155 business listings in Türkiye.
- Average AI-Readiness Score: 44.6 out of 100.
- Only 5 websites reach the "Excellent" level. Another 2,451 reach "Strong". Together, that is 2.2% of all websites.
- 80.6% of websites sit at the "Weak" or "Critical" level. 70% score below 50 out of 100.
- Structured data is the most common gap: it is the lowest-scoring area for 71.9% of websites.
- Sector matters more than location. The best and worst sectors are 9 points apart; across provinces with at least 300 analysed websites, the spread is about 3.5 points.
- Restaurants, car dealers and hotels are among the least prepared sectors, even though they are exactly the kind of businesses people often ask AI to recommend.
What is the Türkiye GEO Map?
The Türkiye GEO Map measures one thing: how easily an AI assistant can read, understand and trust the website of a business in Türkiye (Turkey). GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of getting a business named in the answers that AI engines give. Before an AI can recommend a business, it has to be able to read that business's website and work out what it does, where it operates and why it can be trusted.
This study does not measure whether a business is currently recommended by AI. It measures whether the website gives AI the basics it needs to make that recommendation. We call this the AI-Readiness Score: a score from 0 to 100 that covers areas such as AI crawler access, structured data, citable content, brand clarity and trust signals. For a study of this size, we used a quick version of the score that checks one page of each website (see Methodology).
MessGEO is a GEO platform that measures how visible businesses are in AI engines and helps them improve that visibility. We did not design the AI-Readiness Score on paper: we refined it many times based on more than 300,000 scans of over 217,000 different websites in Türkiye, Portugal and the United States, fixing measurements whenever they gave the wrong result on real sites. The figures in this report come from the Turkish part of that work.
This is the first edition. Over the coming weeks we will publish a detailed report for each sector, and this page will link to every one of them. Sector reports published so far: Restaurant GEO Report 2026 and Hotel GEO Report 2026.
Why AI readiness matters for businesses in Türkiye
Search is shifting from a list of links to a single answer. When a Google search shows an AI summary, the share of visits in which users click on a regular result falls from 15% to 8% (Pew Research Center, 2025). In an AI answer, a business is either named or it is not.
For a hotel in Antalya, a removals company in Istanbul or a marble exporter in Afyon, the question is the same: when a customer asks an AI assistant for a recommendation, can the AI find enough reliable information on the business's own website to include it?
Our data shows that most businesses in Türkiye are not there yet. The good news is that the most common gaps sit on the website itself, which means they are entirely in the owner's hands.
How AI-ready are business websites in Türkiye overall?
Across 111,270 websites, the average AI-Readiness Score is 44.6 out of 100. The score groups websites into five levels from A to F: A "Excellent", B "Strong", C "Room to grow", D "Weak" and F "Critical". Most websites cluster at the lower levels:
| Level | Label | Share of websites |
|---|---|---|
| A | Excellent | 0.004% (5 websites) |
| B | Strong | 2.2% |
| C | Room to grow | 17.2% |
| D | Weak | 49.3% |
| F | Critical | 31.4% |
Put another way, for every business website in Türkiye at the "Excellent" level, more than 22,000 fall short of it. Almost half of all websites sit at level D: they are online and they work, but they give AI very little structured, trustworthy information to go on.
Which sectors are the most and least AI-ready?
We grouped the websites into 27 sectors. Average scores range from 40.5 to 49.5. No sector comes close to being AI-ready on average; the differences come down to which sectors lag slightly less.
Most AI-ready sectors
| Rank | Sector | Websites | Avg. score | Excellent or Strong |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cleaning services | 1,521 | 49.5 | 6.0% |
| 2 | Villa and holiday home rentals | 385 | 48.8 | 5.7% |
| 3 | Shutters, awnings and pergolas | 2,823 | 48.6 | 4.5% |
| 4 | Plumbing, heating and electrical | 5,831 | 47.6 | 2.9% |
| 5 | Building management | 683 | 47.4 | 4.1% |
Least AI-ready sectors
| Rank | Sector | Websites | Avg. score | Critical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 | Vehicle hire | 3,073 | 43.6 | 36.7% |
| 24 | Car repair | 5,299 | 42.7 | 38.7% |
| 25 | Hotels and accommodation | 11,829 | 42.5 | 37.9% |
| 26 | Car dealers | 1,382 | 40.7 | 42.5% |
| 27 | Restaurants | 9,431 | 40.5 | 42.8% |
The pattern is hard to miss. The sectors people often ask AI about, with questions like where to eat, where to stay and where to get a car fixed, are the least prepared. More than 4 in 10 restaurant websites are at the "Critical" level.
Service businesses that compete on trust and local know-how, such as cleaning, plumbing and building management, score highest. Many of them already spell out their services, service areas and contact details clearly, which is exactly the kind of information AI assistants look for.
The full ranking of all 27 sectors is below. A detailed report for each sector will follow in the coming weeks; the first, on restaurants, is already out.
Does location matter? AI readiness by province
Far less than you might expect. Across the 44 provinces with at least 300 analysed websites, average scores range from 42.2 to 45.7, a spread of about 3.5 points. The eight provinces with the most analysed websites are even closer together:
| Province | Websites | Avg. score |
|---|---|---|
| Ankara | 8,709 | 45.3 |
| Istanbul | 35,616 | 45.2 |
| Kocaeli | 3,196 | 45.1 |
| Muğla | 4,539 | 44.7 |
| Izmir | 8,421 | 44.6 |
| Antalya | 6,710 | 44.3 |
| Bursa | 5,090 | 43.8 |
| Konya | 2,651 | 43.1 |
Istanbul alone accounts for almost a third of the websites in the study, yet it scores only slightly above the national average. A business in Isparta or Şanlıurfa is, on average, just as AI-ready as one in Istanbul. The gap is not geographic. It comes down to how websites are built, and it looks the same across the country.
What are the most common AI-readiness gaps?
For every website, we recorded its lowest-scoring category. Three on-site gaps stand out:
- Structured data (71.9% of websites). Structured data is a small block of code (JSON-LD schema) that tells AI in plain terms what a page is about: a business, its address, opening hours, services, products or frequently asked questions. Without it, AI has to guess. For 7 in 10 business websites in Türkiye, this is the lowest-scoring area.
- Trust signals (8.7%). Clear contact details, a real address, named people, dates and policy pages. AI engines favour sources that look accountable.
- Citable content (7.7%). Clear, specific answers that an AI can quote: what you do, for whom, where and in what price range. Vague slogans give AI nothing to work with.
Off-site authority, which depends on what other sources say about a business, is only partly measured in this study, so we have left it out of this ranking.
The first gap is also the easiest to fix. Adding correct structured data is usually a few hours of work for a developer, and it does not require a website redesign.
What should businesses in Türkiye do first?
Based on the most common gaps in this study, these three steps will move most websites forward:
- Add structured data for your business. At a minimum, describe your business type, name, address, phone number, opening hours and service area with schema markup. If you sell products or answer common questions, add those too.
- Say clearly on your website what you do. One clear sentence per service: what it is, who it is for and where you offer it. Write in the language your customers use, and add an English version if you serve international customers.
- Show that you are a real, accountable business. A full address, a working phone number, named people, an about page and up-to-date content.
You can see where your own website stands with the free AI-Readiness Score.
Methodology
- Scope: listings of businesses in Türkiye from public online business directories, collected across all 81 provinces in 27 sectors. The study covers these 27 sectors and is not a census of all businesses. Six sectors in health and other regulated fields were deliberately excluded.
- Sample: 111,270 unique business websites that were reachable at the address given in the listing and were scanned between 28 September and 26 October 2026. Data cut-off: 26 October 2026. Some websites appear in two sectors, so the sector figures add up to 112,527 entries.
- Cleaning: we excluded social media pages, marketplace pages, booking and menu platform pages, directory pages, public institution websites, permanently closed businesses, and websites that were offline or parked. Websites that appeared in three or more sectors (for example manufacturer or portal sites) were also excluded. Websites shared by several branches of the same company were counted once per sector. Where a website was scanned more than once, we used its most recent scan.
- Measurement: a quick version of the MessGEO AI-Readiness Score (0 to 100) that checks one page of each website, usually the page the business lists as its website. It covers AI crawl and render, structured data, citability and structure, entity and brand clarity, E-E-A-T and trust, technical health, and meta and llms.txt. Off-site authority is only partly measured; domain history and search index presence, which require external data, are not part of this study. Level letters and names are the same as in the MessGEO AI-Readiness Score.
- Reporting rules: province figures are shown only where at least 300 websites were analysed, and sector-by-province figures only where at least 100 were analysed. No individual business is named.
- Limitations: the score measures how ready a website is for AI, not whether a business is currently recommended by AI. Our scanner received minor updates during the study period; the effect on the overall figures is small.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Türkiye GEO Map?
The Türkiye GEO Map is a MessGEO study that measures how ready business websites in Türkiye are to be understood and recommended by AI assistants. The 2026 edition covers 111,270 websites across 27 sectors and all 81 provinces.
How AI-ready are business websites in Türkiye?
Not very. The average AI-Readiness Score is 44.6 out of 100. Only 5 of 111,270 websites reach the "Excellent" level, while 80.6% sit at the "Weak" or "Critical" level.
Which sector in Türkiye is the most AI-ready?
Cleaning services, with an average score of 49.5, followed by villa and holiday home rentals (48.8) and shutters, awnings and pergolas (48.6). Restaurants (40.5), car dealers (40.7) and hotels (42.5) are among the least ready.
What is the most common problem on business websites in Türkiye?
Missing or incomplete structured data. It is the lowest-scoring area for 71.9% of the websites we analysed. Structured data tells AI assistants what a business is, where it is and what it offers.
Does a business's location affect its AI readiness?
Very little. Across provinces with at least 300 analysed websites, average scores differ by about 3.5 points. Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir all score close to the national average of 44.6.
Does a high AI-Readiness Score mean ChatGPT will recommend my business?
No. The score shows whether your website gives AI the information it needs. Whether AI actually recommends you also depends on what other sources say about you and on the competition in your sector. Readiness is the first step, not a guarantee.
How can I check my own website's AI readiness?
On messgeo.com you can get a free AI-Readiness Score for any website. It shows your score, your level and the categories to fix first.