A client in Spain needs someone to build their software. They open Google and type “software development company”, or they just ask ChatGPT who to hire. Your company, does it show up in that answer?
We wanted to know how the whole sector does with that question, so we measured 731 Spanish software development companies, one by one, in Google and in ChatGPT. The picture is uncomfortable. 572 don’t appear in either one.
The podium is almost empty
Of the 731, only 159 appear where their client starts looking. The rest, 78%, aren’t there at that moment. And it’s not that they rank poorly, it’s that they don’t show up at all. Almost eight out of ten companies in the sector, invisible right where the decision of who to hire gets made.
Being in Google helps, but it doesn’t guarantee you’re in ChatGPT
The most revealing part isn’t how many appear, but where. In Google, 59 companies show up. In ChatGPT, 111. And in both at once, only 11. They’re two almost separate lists. Ranking well in the search engine doesn’t guarantee you a spot in the AI’s answer, and the other way around too. They’re two different games that need to connect, and most of the sector isn’t playing either one.
The top is more open than it looks
You might think the top positions are taken by the usual big names. They aren’t. The best-positioned company in the country barely reaches half of the possible score, and many of the ones that appear do so by a very small margin. You don’t need to be the biggest to be among the visible ones, you need to be one of the few that show up. Today that bar is lower than the sector thinks.
That’s why we measured it, and put it in plain sight
We published all of it in the Visibility Index, Spain edition. The 731 companies, which ones appear and in which channel, the full method and the cutoff date. It doesn’t measure quality or say who’s better. It measures something simpler and more uncomfortable, who shows up when their client searches and who doesn’t.
You can see the full ranking and look for your company in the Spain Visibility Index. If you don’t find it, you already know which group it’s in.
