METHODOLOGY · VERSION 2.4 · UPDATED MAY 2026
How we score.
Eight signals. One number from 0 to 100. The same algorithm for every business — chains, indies, doctors, baristas. No money moves the score. Everything that does is documented below.
- SIGNALS SCORED
- 08
- POINT SCALE
- 100
- BUSINESSES TRACKED
- 43
- PAID PLACEMENTS EVER
- 0
CONTENTS
- 01Search rankingsWhere you show up for the queries your customers actually type.
- 02AI visibilityWhether ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity recommend you by name.
- 03Response timeHow quickly and consistently you reply to Google reviews.
- 04Speed & mobileCore Web Vitals. How fast your site feels on a real phone.
- 05Citations & backlinksWhere you’re named on the web, and how authoritative those sources are.
- 06Google Business ProfileHours, photos, services, posts — the listing search engines read first.
- 07Content freshnessIs your site updated? Does it answer the questions people ask in 2026?
- 08On-page & schemaMeta tags, structured data, canonicals — the plumbing search engines read.
CHAPTER 01 OF 08 · SEARCH
01
Search rankings.
For each business we identify 12 high-value keywords (a mix of branded, category, and long-tail terms) and track their positions in the local pack, the organic results, and the map pack every week.
A business at #1 for a term with 2,900 monthly searches scores dramatically higher than one at #5 for a term with 90. We weight by search volume, position, and intent — not raw rank count.
SOURCES
- DataForSEO SERP API (weekly)
- Google Keyword Planner (monthly)
- Local-pack scraper (daily)
EXAMPLE
How Figure Eight earned a 96 on search
Three high-intent neighborhood terms (“coffee Austin south congress”, “espresso bar austin”, “best pour over austin”) all ranked #1 in the local pack. The map pack added a fourth. Long-tail menu queries handled the rest.
CHAPTER 02 OF 08 · AI
02
AI visibility.
We ask the three largest assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) the questions a real customer would: “best plastic surgeon in Costa Mesa,” “coffee near the convention center,” “med spa with payment plans.” Then we record whether each assistant cites the business by name and what it says about it.
AI search is now the first surface a meaningful share of customers see. A business that ranks well on Google but is invisible to ChatGPT is losing traffic it doesn’t even know exists.
SOURCES
- ChatGPT-5 API (monthly)
- Gemini 2.5 Pro API (monthly)
- Perplexity Sonar API (monthly)
EXAMPLE
Why QUIKTOX jumped 18 points in 60 days
We helped them earn citations on three authority sites. ChatGPT started naming them the following month. Gemini a month after that. Their AI-visibility score went from 14 to 78 in two cycles.
CHAPTER 03 OF 08 · RESPONSE
03
Response time.
Customers read review responses as carefully as they read the reviews themselves. A thoughtful response to a 3-star review converts more browsers than a wall of 5-star silence.
We estimate response time automatically for every business in our sample. Claim your listing to replace the estimate with your real data and correct any inaccuracies.
SOURCES
- Google Business Profile API
- Review-response parser (weekly)
- Owner-claimed corrections
CHAPTER 04 OF 08 · PERFORMANCE
04
Speed & mobile.
We score speed and mobile experience as two separate signals, each weighted 14% of the total. Most customers find local businesses on a phone, and most local-business websites are still optimized for a 2018 desktop.
Largest Contentful Paint at the 75th percentile is the headline metric, but we also measure Interaction to Next Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and the basics — viewport meta, tap-target spacing, font legibility.
SOURCES
- PageSpeed Insights API
- Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)
- Our own Lighthouse CI
CHAPTER 05 OF 08 · AUTHORITY
05
Citations & backlinks.
Where your business is named across the web — and, more importantly, how authoritative those mentions are. A citation on the New York Times is worth a thousand on a link farm.
We check 40+ authority sources monthly: major directories, local news outlets, industry-specific sites, and independent blogs. Mentions are weighted by domain authority, editorial quality, and contextual relevance.
SOURCES
- BrightLocal Citation Tracker
- Ahrefs Backlink Index
- Editorial-quality classifier
CHAPTER 06 OF 08 · FUNDAMENTALS
06
Google Business Profile.
Your Google Business Profile is the first impression most customers get and the first source most AI assistants pull from. Completeness matters; so does freshness.
We score every required field, every recommended field, and the cadence of updates. A complete profile that hasn’t been touched in two years scores worse than an incomplete one updated last week.
SOURCES
- Google Business Profile API
- Direct GMB scraper (weekly)
- Owner-claimed updates
CHAPTER 07 OF 08 · RELEVANCE
07
Content freshness.
Is the site updated? Are you answering the questions people are actually asking in 2026? Or is your services page still the one you launched in 2019?
We crawl every business website on a 28-day cadence, classify the intent of each page, and compare it to current search demand for that category. Stale pages drag the score; fresh, intent-aligned pages lift it.
SOURCES
- Our monthly crawler
- SERP content analysis
- Internal query-intent classifier
CHAPTER 08 OF 08 · PLUMBING
08
On-page & schema.
The technical layer. Meta titles and descriptions are present and unique. Canonical URLs are set. Structured data (JSON-LD) is valid. Sitemap exists and is current. Internal links are sensible.
We run 12 checks on every page, every month. Schema validation catches breakage within hours. If something critical breaks, the owner gets a notification — even on the free tier.
SOURCES
- Our technical auditor
- Schema.org validator
- Lighthouse SEO audit
WEIGHTING
How the number gets to 100.
Each signal is scored 0–100 on its own. We then combine them with these weights to produce the Digital Score. Weights are the same for every business — chains, indies, doctors, baristas — and they’re published here in the open.
- Reviews18%
- Website speed14%
- Mobile experience14%
- SEO health12%
- Content quality12%
- Social presence10%
- Backlink authority10%
- AI visibility10%
THESE WEIGHTS ARE THE SAME FOR EVERY BUSINESS · TOTAL 100%
COMMITMENTS
The things that would compromise the score.
Five things we don’t do — because doing any one of them would mean the score is selling something other than the truth. Every leaderboard, every profile, every recommendation is editorially independent.
- 01 · NO
No pay-to-play.
We do not accept money to move rankings. Not from listed businesses, not from agencies, not from anyone.
- 02 · NO
No sponsored spots.
No promoted entries in leaderboards. No sponsored businesses at the top of any ranking. Leaderboards are editorially determined, algorithmically computed, and human-audited.
- 03 · NO
No affiliate links.
We don’t monetize clicks out. The links on this site go where they say they go, and we earn nothing when you click them.
- 04 · NO
No hidden criteria.
Every signal that affects the score is documented on this page. If we add a signal or change a weight, we publish it here first with the change date.
- 05 · NO
No category tricks.
A business is in one category — the one its customers would name first. We don’t let owners shop for an easier leaderboard, and we audit miscategorisations every month.
THE WHOLE POINT
Scoring works because the scoring is public.
Every signal documented. Every weight published. Every leaderboard recomputed weekly with the same algorithm and audited by humans before it ships.