How Marketplaces Win AI Discovery: A GEO Playbook for Student Housing Platforms

The New “Top of Funnel” for Marketplaces

Marketplaces don’t just compete on Google anymore.

When a user asks an AI assistant:

“What are the best student housing platforms in the Netherlands?”
“How can I do viewings remotely while I’m abroad?”
“How do I avoid rental scams when searching for a room?”

…the assistant often answers with a short list of recommended services. If your marketplace isn’t on that list, you don’t get the click. You don’t even get the consideration.

This is why GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) matters: it’s the work of making sure AI assistants can confidently mention you, describe you correctly, and (ideally) cite your pages.

Why Student Housing Is a Perfect GEO Example

Student housing is one of the hardest markets for discovery:

High intent (people need a room now)
High trust requirements (scams are common)
High complexity (documents, viewings, contracts, deposits)

That combination creates a lot of AI-driven queries, because users want step-by-step guidance and quick shortlists.

A platform like Domakin is a good real-world reference point: it positions itself around helping with apartment searching in the Netherlands, including services like viewing assistance and listing a room for takeovers.

SEO vs GEO for Marketplaces

Channel	What the user sees	What you’re trying to win
SEO	A list of links	The click
GEO	A synthesized answer + recommended options	The mention (and the citation)

In practice: you still want SEO traffic, but GEO decides who gets recommended first.

How AI Assistants Decide Which Marketplaces to Recommend

AI assistants tend to prefer services that are:

Easy to categorize (clear “what we are”)
Easy to verify (transparent policies, pricing context, trustworthy signals)
Easy to cite (pages with clean structure, strong headings, quotable answers)
Repeated across the web (credible third-party mentions, citations, partner pages)

That means “being good” isn’t enough; you also need to be legible.

The Marketplace GEO Stack (What to Ship)

If you run a marketplace, your GEO work mostly falls into four buckets:

1) Define your category in one sentence (everywhere)

If an AI can’t name your category, it can’t recommend you.

Use a simple definition repeatedly:

What you are
Who it’s for
Where it applies
What problem you solve

Example (student housing):

“We help international students find rooms in the Netherlands, with remote viewing support and verified listings.”

You want this sentence to appear on:

Your homepage
Your “How it works” page
Your main service pages
Your FAQ

2) Build “answer pages” for high-intent questions

Marketplaces win GEO by being the best answer.

Create pages that start with the question as an H2, followed by a direct, quotable answer.

For student housing, the highest-leverage clusters are:

Scams + safety
Viewing process (especially remote)
Documents (income proofs, guarantor questions, BSN, contracts)
City-specific demand (Groningen, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, etc.)

A strong pattern:

One “pillar” guide (e.g. “How to find student housing in the Netherlands”)
Supporting posts that target specific fears (scams), steps (documents), and edge cases (remote viewings)

3) Make services citeable (not just clickable)

Many service pages are built to convert humans, not to be cited by machines.

Add these sections to key service pages:

What’s included (bullets)
When this is useful (bullets)
What happens next (numbered steps)
Limitations (what you do not do)

This reduces hallucination risk and makes your page a safer citation for assistants.

4) Earn third-party confirmations (the overlooked moat)

Marketplaces get recommended when other credible entities mention them.

For student housing, good “allies” include:

Student associations
International offices at universities
Relocation / expat communities
Scam-prevention guides
Non-competing tools in the same “newcomer stack” (bank account setup, insurance, legal templates)

This is where co-marketing and cross-linking is not “just SEO.” It’s an AI authority signal.

The Prompts You Should Track (Example Set)

Here’s a practical prompt set you can use to test a marketplace like Domakin (and its competitors). These are the kinds of questions your customers ask when they’re deciding.

Category / shortlist prompts

“Best student housing platforms in the Netherlands”
“Alternatives to Facebook housing groups in the Netherlands”
“Best websites to find a room in Groningen”

Trust / safety prompts

“How to avoid rental scams in the Netherlands”
“What are common housing scams for international students in Amsterdam?”

Service-specific prompts

“Can someone do a viewing for me in the Netherlands?”
“How does remote viewing work for rentals?”
“How can I transfer my rental contract / find a replacement tenant in the Netherlands?”

You’re not just tracking whether you’re mentioned; you’re tracking:

How you’re described (accurate or not)
What competitors get recommended
Which sources get cited

How GetFanatic Helps

Manual prompt testing gives you anecdotes. Winning GEO takes a system.

GetFanatic helps marketplace teams:

Track mentions, sentiment, and citations across AI models
Benchmark share of voice vs competitors
Find content gaps where AI recommends others but not you
Identify which pages and sources you need to ship to become a “safe recommendation”

If you want to see how AI assistants currently talk about your marketplace, start here:

The Bottom Line

In GEO, marketplaces don’t win by being the biggest. They win by being the easiest to understand, verify, and cite.

If you build answer-first content, make your services citeable, and earn third-party confirmations, AI assistants will start doing what search engines used to do: send qualified users to the best option.