Disclosure: I work on QwickSite, a website builder, and I'm part of its partner program. This post is about the method and the numbers; the tool is mentioned only at the end. I used AI assistance to help draft it.

I wanted a number instead of a guess, so I wrote a small script that asks OpenStreetMap (Overpass API) for named restaurants, cafes, pharmacies, clinics, gyms, bakeries, barbers and clothes shops in 8 areas of Cairo, Giza, Alexandria and Mansoura, and counts what each listing says about a website. Run on 2026-11-13.

Findings (1,479 named businesses)

  • 108 (7.3%) list a website.
  • 60 (4.1%) list only a social page.
  • 1,311 (88.6%) list neither.
  • By kind: pharmacies 99.5% listed neither, bakeries 94.6%, clothes shops 92.0%, cafes 91.3%. Dentists/clinics were the most "online": 14.0% have a website.
  • By area: Sheikh Zayed City had the highest share with a website (22.9%), central Alexandria the lowest (2.4%).

Limits (important)

OpenStreetMap is volunteer-maintained. A business with no website tag may well have a site or a page the map doesn't know about, and businesses missing from the map aren't counted. These are counts of what the open map lists, not a census of what exists online. 6 area-and-kind runs returned errors from the public service and are excluded.

Data (c) OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

The script, protocol and raw CSV/JSON are in a free repo (CC BY 4.0): https://github.com/qrfds/local-web-presence-kit (osm-audit folder). If you run it in your own city I'd like to compare numbers.

What we do about the gap

We make a free draft site per business, and I take part in a partner program where builders earn a commission when a business signs up. The rules and maths are public: https://qwicksite.com/en/partners/builders?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=builders&utm_content=devto-audit-v1

It's new, and amounts per sale are small. I'd rather you hear that from me.