The practical brief

The finding

From one Estonian connection, local accounting suppliers appeared in all six Estonian-language runs and none of the six English-language runs. [c1] [c3] [c4]

Why it matters

An English-only report may be asking a different question from your customers. Before paying to improve a visibility score, check which languages, location and repeated questions produced it.

One connection. Three languages. Different supplier sets.
Question languageRuns naming any Estonian supplierRuns naming any global supplier
Estonian6 of 61 of 6 [c1]
Russian4 of 66 of 6 [c2]
English0 of 66 of 6 [c3]
Accounting software for freelancers, Tallinn connection, 30 August 2026. Table 3 and its accompanying text. Each language was asked six times; these are observed run counts, not estimated market shares. Study source

What to try

BLURSOR’s practical interpretation

Repeat one important buying question in the languages your customers use. Keep the location and question meaning steady, save the answers, and compare whether your business and relevant local competitors appear.

Study boundary

Six runs are a small snapshot, not a permanent ranking. The study did not test whether translating your website increases recommendations.

Start with the question, not the score

Ask a fluent speaker to preserve the buying intent instead of mechanically translating keywords. Use a real question about a product or service you sell. A report is easier to interpret when you can read the exact questions behind it.

Then repeat the question in fresh sessions. Write down whether your business appears, which alternatives appear, and which sources are cited. Do not reduce the whole answer to whichever name happened to come first.

  • Record language, stated customer location, date and search surface.
  • Keep the complete answers so another person can check the comparison.
  • Treat this as a diagnostic test, not a promise that changing your website will move a score.

Evidence [c4]

The comparison is deliberately narrow

The table comes from logged-out web sessions on one connection. The wider study also found no language effect in its project-management comparison. Category matters; a result for accounting does not establish the same pattern for your market.

If your own answers differ by language, investigate the missed suppliers and the information available about them. If they do not, record that too. A useful test should be allowed to show that the suspected problem is absent.

Evidence [c1] [c2] [c3] [c4]

The source and its limits

The Language of the Question Selects the Market: Query Language and Exit IP as Separable Factors in Commercial Recommendations from a Generative Search Interface

Dmitrij Żatuchin · 2026-08-30

A small repeated-prompt study; the displayed comparison uses one accounting question from Tallinn on 30 August 2026.

  • Six repetitions do not prove stable probabilities or deterministic behavior.
  • One provider and one prompt per category; the project-management control showed no language effect.
  • The author owns an AI-visibility measurement business and discloses that commercial interest.

Evidence behind this briefing

[c1] Estonian: a local supplier appeared in 6/6 runs; a global supplier in 1/6.

Section 4.3, Table 3, Estonian row · Read the study

[c2] Russian: an Estonian supplier appeared in 4/6 runs; a global supplier in 6/6.

Section 4.3, Table 3 and accompanying paragraph · Read the study

[c3] English: no local supplier; global suppliers appeared in all six runs.

Section 4.3, Table 3, English row · Read the study

[c4] The design repeats each prompt six times per cell.

Abstract; Section 3.1; Sections 4.6 and 6 for category and sample limits · Read the study