SEO in Berlin and Germany: the Impressum, cookie and email rules a good agency gets right first

To buy SEO in Berlin or anywhere in Germany, check four things before you compare prices: that your site has a complete Impressum under section 5 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG), that tracking and ad cookies wait for consent under section 25 of the TDDDG, that email campaigns only go to people who said yes under section 7 of the UWG, and that every Google, Search Console and analytics account is opened in your company's name. Google handles almost 88% of searches in Germany, so the work is mostly Google SEO in German, with English pages for the international buyers that many Berlin companies sell to.

The German search market in numbers

StatCounter's figures for September 2026 put Google at 87.84% of searches in Germany, Bing at 6.49%, Yahoo at 1.71%, Yandex at 1.56%, DuckDuckGo at 1.07% and Ecosia at 1.03%. Check a German site in Bing Webmaster Tools as well as Search Console.

On social media, StatCounter's referral figures for the same month show Facebook sending 57.64% of the social visits to websites in Germany, followed by X (Twitter) at 11.30%, Instagram at 10.76%, Pinterest at 7.93%, Reddit at 5.58% and YouTube at 4.67%. A content plan that only feeds Instagram misses most of that traffic.

Four legal points every German site and campaign has to pass

Many of the expensive mistakes a German business makes online are legal, not technical. Ask any agency how it handles each point below before it touches your site.

1. The Impressum (section 5 DDG)

The Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz requires anyone offering a commercial online service to keep certain information easy to recognise, directly reachable and always available. It includes:

• your name and the address where you are established, and for a company its legal form and the person authorised to represent it;
• details for fast electronic contact and direct communication, including an email address;
• the supervisory authority, where your activity needs official approval;
• the commercial register you are entered in and your register number;
• your VAT identification number or business identification number, if you have one;
• for regulated professions, your chamber, your legal job title and where the professional rules can be read.

An agency rebuilding your site should keep the Impressum one click from every page, usually in the footer.

2. Cookies and tracking (section 25 TDDDG)

The Telekommunikation-Digitale-Dienste-Datenschutz-Gesetz says that storing information on a user's device, or reading information already stored there, is only allowed if the user has consented on the basis of clear and comprehensive information, given in line with the GDPR. No consent is needed only where the storage is needed to transmit a message, or where it is strictly necessary to provide a service the user explicitly asked for. In practice, analytics and ad pixels wait for a yes in the cookie banner. Ask your agency what its tracking does when a visitor says no.

3. Email and phone marketing (section 7 UWG)

The Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb treats advertising by email without the recipient's prior express consent as unreasonable harassment. Phone advertising to a consumer needs prior express consent too; to a business it needs at least presumed consent. There is one exception for email to existing customers, and all four conditions must be met: you got the address when selling them goods or a service, you only advertise your own similar goods or services, the customer has not objected, and you told them clearly, when you collected the address and in every email, that they can object at any time. So a bought list of German email addresses is not a campaign. It is a risk.

4. Influencer posts and native ads (section 5a UWG)

Section 5a(4) UWG makes it unfair not to show the commercial purpose of a post where it is not obvious from the context. A post that helps another company is not commercial if the creator received no payment or similar consideration, but the law presumes a consideration was received unless the creator can credibly show otherwise. For an influencer campaign in Germany, that means a clear label on every paid or gifted post, and a written record of what each creator was paid or given. Our guide to the influencer brief, payment and disclosure covers the rest of the setup.

Berlin: what is local about buying SEO here

Berlin's commercial register is kept at Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, which is also the register court named on the Impressum of a Berlin GmbH, together with its HRB number. If an agency offers to write your Impressum, check that it uses your real register court and number rather than a template.

Many Berlin companies work in English and sell in German, or the other way round. Decide which market each page is for, give each language its own URL, and connect the versions properly. Our German technical SEO audit checklist with hreflang for Germany walks through it step by step.

For a shop, studio, practice or restaurant, Berlin search is local by district: people search for a service near them in Kreuzberg, Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg. A complete Google Business Profile with a real address, real opening hours and real photos does more here than any amount of link building. Our German guide to local SEO and how Google ranks businesses on the map explains what you can fix yourself.

If you are setting up in Berlin from abroad, the city's Business Location Center, run by Berlin Partner, lists start-up support, technology parks and a Business Immigration Service on its English site.

What to put in the brief

Service	What to ask for in writing
SEO	The pages to be written or fixed each month, in which language, with Search Console in your name
Local SEO	The Business Profile owned by you, with your real Berlin address and district pages where they make sense
Content marketing	Topics per buyer, who approves German copy, and which channels each piece is written for
Google Ads	Account in your name, ads and landing pages written in German, spend separate from the fee
Influencers	How each paid or gifted post is labelled, and the record of what each creator received
Email	How consent is recorded, and the objection notice in every email

One Google Ads point changed recently. Google's help centre says the campaign-level language setting is being removed for Search campaigns from September 2026, and Search ads now match the language of the ad itself. So for German searchers, the ads and landing pages have to be written in German. Our German guide to what a Google Ads agency should manage and which access you keep lists the account checks.

Hiring an SEO company in Germany

German agencies price SEO by monthly retainer, by fixed project or by day rate. Compare quotes on the same things: hours, named people, the pages produced, the reports you get and what is excluded. Ask who writes the German copy, because a native writer who knows your trade is worth more than a translated template.

Refuse any offer that promises a position. Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO says plainly: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." If you read German, our guide to SEO consulting, what it costs and what goes into the contract covers the contract in more detail.

The same checks work outside Berlin. A business in Hamburg, Munich or Cologne names its own register court in its Impressum and competes in its own districts, but the DDG, the TDDDG and the UWG apply in every German state.

Questions about SEO in Berlin and Germany

Does an English-only website in Germany need an Impressum?

Yes, if it is a commercial online service offered from Germany. The DDG duty does not depend on the language of the site. Keep the Impressum easy to find from every page.

Can we use Google Analytics before a visitor accepts cookies?

Not for anything that stores or reads information on the device, unless it is strictly necessary for a service the user asked for. Under section 25 TDDDG, analytics and ad cookies wait for consent.

Can we email business contacts in Germany without consent?

Advertising by email needs prior express consent under section 7 UWG, whether the recipient is a consumer or a company. The only exception is the existing-customer rule, with all four of its conditions.

Should a Berlin start-up run its site in German or English?

Write each page in the language its buyer searches in. Many Berlin firms need both, each on its own URL.

When can we judge whether our SEO agency is delivering?

Read Search Console for impressions, positions and indexed pages, the Business Profile performance report for calls and directions, and your own count of enquiries by page. The outcome depends on competition, your offer and your budget.

What a Berlin buyer hears from ChatGPT

A German buyer does not only search. StatCounter's September 2026 figures for AI chatbots in Germany show ChatGPT with 79.27% of chatbot use, Gemini with 11.06% and Perplexity with 5.15%. When a Berlin founder asks one of them for a good SEO agency in Berlin, the answer is a short list built from what the assistant can read: agency directories, German trade press, award lists and the agencies' own pages, in German and in English. That list rarely matches Google's results, and a strong agency can be missing from it. AI Knows Us checks this for a business, asking its real buyer questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews and showing which firms each answer names and the sources behind it.