Primary measurement · August 2026
A third of local trade businesses have no website at all
Most numbers you will read on this subject come from a survey. This one comes from looking. We measured every plumbing and heating business Google ranks in 20 small towns across 10 states — 302 businesses — by fetching each homepage and reading its Google listing. Nothing here is estimated, and no business is named.
302
businesses measured
20 towns, 10 states
33.1%
have no website at all
100 of 302
25.4%
of existing sites are fault-free
50 of 197 measurable
The full distribution
Among sites we could measure, the median carried 3 faults. The worst carried 25. The top tenth started at 13.
What stands out
The absence is bigger than the neglect. 33.1% have no website whatsoever — no builder subscription lapsed, no old page rotting, simply nothing. These businesses rank on Google Maps, take calls, and have done for decades. A website was never part of how they work.
A quarter of existing sites are genuinely fine. 25.4% carry no measured faults. It is worth saying plainly, because the trade press implies every small business is a disaster online. Most are not — but the ones that are, are badly so: 11.7% carry ten or more separate faults at once.
Ranking locally is not won with a website. Businesses with no site at all still rank in these searches, sometimes above competitors with one. A website does not buy position. A bad one costs the visit after the position is already won — which is a different, quieter problem.
Method, and what these numbers do not say
Each business's homepage was fetched and analysed for a fixed set of faults: whether the page asks search engines not to list it, whether it carries any mobile layout rules, whether the phone number is tappable, how many bytes the homepage transfers, and whether the text contains an abandonment marker such as a "coming soon" notice. The individual checks are described here, with a worked example.
The honest limitations:
- The sample is not random. These are towns we were prospecting in, and the trades are plumbing, heating, cooling and drain work. It does not generalise to retail, restaurants, or cities.
- "No website" means no site was listed on the business's Google profile and none was found. A business could have one that Google does not know about — which, for the purpose of being found, is close to the same thing.
- A fault count is a count of specific measurable defects, not a design opinion. A site can score zero and still be ugly.
- Measured August 2026. Websites change.
If you want the same measurement run on your own site, post the link — you get the numbers whether or not you ever want anything else, and the price is published if you do.