When an AI recommends a Cyprus business, whose website does it actually cite?
We wanted a number instead of an opinion. So we asked an AI search engine ten ordinary questions, the kind anyone types before choosing a restaurant, a lawyer or a builder in Cyprus, and we wrote down every single source it cited. Here is what came back, including the parts that argue against us.
The three numbers
of the 85 cited sources were a business's own website
sectors where not one Cyprus business website was cited
sectors where third-party sources outnumbered business websites
Every sector, in full
One question per sector. Every source in the answer counted and classified as either the business's own website or a third party: portal, directory, listicle, review platform or social page.
| Sector | Sources cited | Own websites | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law firms | 18 | 13 | 72% |
| Dentists | 15 | 7 | 47% |
| Accountants | 3 | 1 | 33% |
| Plumbing | 13 | 4 | 31% |
| Car sales | 10 | 3 | 30% |
| Estate agents | 11 | 2 | 18% |
| Restaurants | 1 | 0 | 0% |
| Hotels | 3 | 0 | 0% |
| Construction | 6 | 0 | 0% |
| Gyms | 5 | 0 | 0% |
| Total | 85 | 30 | 35% |
What it means if you run one of these businesses
Not that AI is broken. That the answer is assembled from whatever publishes substance, and for most Cypriot businesses that is somebody else.
When the answer names TripAdvisor, Booking or a directory instead of you, the customer lands there, not on your site. Your reputation earned the mention. The platform collects the booking and the commission.
For restaurants and hotels this is already the whole picture. Not one Cypriot restaurant or hotel website was cited. The answer came through TripAdvisor and two booking portals, which is exactly where the commission lives.
For gyms the answer cited Facebook pages. Whatever those businesses have built online, an AI reading the market found a social page worth quoting and a website that was not.
The sectors that came out ahead, and why that is the useful part
Law firms reached 72 percent own websites and dentists 47 percent, far above everyone else. Look at those sites and the reason is not subtle: they carry detailed explanatory pages, answers to the questions clients actually ask, rather than a contact form and an address. That is the whole mechanism in one line. The businesses whose sites answer questions are the ones an AI can quote. There is nothing to quote on a brochure.
Method, so you can repeat it
On 29 July 2026 we put ten consumer-style questions to the AI search engine Perplexity, one per sector, in the Cyprus market: restaurants, hotels, construction, gyms, law firms, dentists, accountants, estate agents, car sales and plumbing. For each answer we recorded every cited source and classified it as either the business's own website or a third party. No sources were excluded. The complete question list and the full list of all 85 sources are available on request.
What this measurement is not
It is ten questions, not a census of the Cypriot market. One question per sector cannot capture a whole industry, and AI answers vary between runs and change over time, so a repeat next month will not return identical sources. Read it as a snapshot with a consistent pattern, not as a fixed figure. We publish the method precisely so anyone can check it rather than take our word for it.
More across Cyprus
Who measured this
Fabio is on the ground — reach him directly on +357 99 044006. Not a call centre, not a reseller: the person who builds your site.
Every architecture and every strategy comes from Fabio Fornaro himself. Only then do more than sixty specialised agents build it, each for exactly one job. Our first customer is ourselves: every system ran in our own business first. Behind it stand 25 years of sales and entrepreneurship. Fabio and AnnaMaria live in Larnaca and build here.
Domani AI is Domaniai LTD, registered in Paphos, Cyprus, hosting inside the EU — GDPR-compliant, verifiable on Wikidata and Crunchbase.
Frequently asked questions
How visible are Cyprus businesses in AI search?
In a measurement of ten sectors run on 29 July 2026, an AI search engine cited 85 sources when answering ordinary questions about finding a business in Cyprus. Only 30 of them, about 35 percent, were a Cyprus business's own website. In four sectors, restaurants, hotels, construction and gyms, not one was cited. Each sector was measured with a single question here; a deeper measurement of construction on 30 July, with six questions, found builders holding 42 percent, so treat the one-question reading as a first indication and the sector page as the reliable figure.
Why does an AI cite TripAdvisor instead of the restaurant itself?
Because the portal publishes substance about the restaurant and the restaurant often does not. An AI answer is assembled from sources it can quote. A page with prices, answers and detail gives it something; a brochure page with a phone number does not. The portal wins the citation by default, and with it the click and the commission.
Which Cyprus sectors do best in AI answers?
Law firms, at 72 percent own websites, and dentists at 47 percent, well ahead of every other sector measured. Both are sectors whose websites carry detailed explanatory pages rather than a single contact page, which is the likeliest reason.
Is ten questions enough to conclude anything?
It is enough to see a pattern and not enough to call it a census, and we say so on the page. One question per sector cannot describe a whole industry, and AI answers vary between runs. That is why we publish the method and hand over the full source list: the point is that you can repeat it in two minutes rather than trust us.
Can I check my own business?
Yes, free and without signing up. Our site check runs the same kind of analysis on your own domain and shows where you stand. If you would rather just ask, Fabio is in Larnaca on +357 99 044006.
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