The figures at a glance
| What we counted | Agency searches (46) | Advice searches (24) |
|---|---|---|
| An AI Overview at the top | 45 of 46 | 24 of 24 |
| Share of the first ten results on a .ma site | 51% | 22% |
| Searches with no .ma site in the first ten | 2 of 46 | 12 of 24 |
| A directory in the first ten | 27 of 46 | 3 of 24 |
| A price question in People Also Ask | 24 of 46 | 8 of 24 |
How we searched
- 70 searches in one day in October 2026, 35 in English and 35 in French, with Google set to Morocco in an ordinary browser.
- 46 agency searches: a service, a city or a sector with SEO, such as "agence seo casablanca" or "seo for hotels morocco". 24 advice searches: questions such as "how long does seo take" or "prix seo maroc".
- What we kept: the first two result pages, of which we counted the first ten organic results, plus the AI Overview and the People Also Ask questions.
- A .ma site means a site on the .ma domain. Moroccan businesses on .com are counted with the rest, so the real Moroccan share is higher.
- Limits: one day, one location setting, and results that move every day. Our own site is one of the agencies these searches can show, so this page names platforms, never agencies.
1. An AI Overview came first on 69 of 70 searches
Before any link, Google wrote a summary on every search but one. On agency searches it named agencies and listed services, and on 21 searches the text we saved quoted a price in dirhams or euros, 17 of them agency searches. For a buyer, the first answer is now a summary built from other people's pages.
The practical step is to state the facts you want repeated, plainly, on your own pages. Google explains how these summaries pick their links in AI features and your website, and our guide to AI Overviews in Morocco covers what changes for a Moroccan site.
2. Moroccan sites hold half the agency results, a fifth of the advice
On agency searches, .ma sites filled 51% of the first ten results: 59% in French, 43% in English. On advice searches the share fell to 22%, and 12 of the 24 showed no .ma site at all. A business owner in Morocco who asks how long SEO takes, or how to analyse a website, ends up reading French and American guides.
That gap is room. A guide that answers with Moroccan detail, in the reader's language, competes with pages written for another market.
3. English searches return French pages
On English agency searches in six cities, 38 of the 48 ranking pages whose language we could read were in French. For "seo agency rabat", all ten were. French searches showed French pages: 2 of 210 were in English.
An English page about a Moroccan service therefore competes with few English pages, and an English-speaking buyer, an investor or a foreign hotel group, is shown French. See multilingual SEO and our guide to SEO in French, English and Arabic.
4. Directories appear on most agency searches
A directory sat in the first ten results of 27 of the 46 agency searches: Sortlist on 24 searches, The Manifest on 10, Clutch on 7. English searches showed them more often, 16 of 23, against 11 of 23 in French. Where they appeared, they took one to three of the ten places.
For any service business the lesson carries over: a complete profile with reviews on the directories of your sector is a second way into results you will not always hold yourself.
5. Buyers ask about price and about the best agency
We recorded 302 People Also Ask questions. A price question appeared on 24 of the 46 agency searches. The most repeated were "Quels sont les 3 types de SEO ?" on 21 searches and "Quelle est la meilleure agence SEO au Maroc ?" on 17.
Both can be answered honestly. Our SEO cost guide gathers the rates Moroccan agencies publish, and how to choose an SEO agency answers the second without a ranking nobody can prove.
What this means for a business in Morocco
- Write the facts you want quoted. Services, cities, timing and what a client receives, in plain sentences a summary can lift.
- Check what Google shows in each language. Search your own services in English and French from Morocco: the competition may not be who you expect.
- Complete your directory profiles. They hold places on many searches.
- Answer the price and choice questions on your site. Buyers ask them before they call.
The same reading for your own searches is part of the free audit, which includes who ranks above you and why.