We scored 199 local businesses. The average was 2.5 out of 10.

When we call a business, we score it first. Ten checks, one point each, worked out by a person looking at the real website, the real Google profile, and the real reviews. No software guess, no bought data. In October 2026 we scored 199 local businesses across Canada this way, from Vancouver to Charlottetown, across thirteen trades. The average score was 2.5 out of 10. The middle score was 2. A third of the businesses scored zero. Nobody scored 9 or 10.

How the scoring works

The ten checks are published on our score page, and they are the same for every business. Four points for the website: loads fast on a phone, tap-to-call up top, an easy way to ask for a job, and a design that looks current. Two for Google: a claimed and filled-in profile, and review strength. Two for being found: showing up where customers look, and the same details everywhere. One for proof of life: a post in the last 30 days. One for AI search: whether an AI engine names the business when a customer asks. We also hold one design point back on every site we score, including the best ones, because design can always be bettered. That puts the practical ceiling at 9, and the highest score in this set was 8.5.

Where the points are lost

The website is the strongest area, and it is still weak. Businesses averaged 1.2 out of 3 on the website checks, and 4 in 10 scored zero there, which means the site failed the website checks outright. The Google checks were worse: an average of 0.45 out of 2, with 7 in 10 scoring zero, which means no claimed and filled-in profile and no review strength at all. Being found averaged 0.54 out of 2, with nearly 6 in 10 at zero. Proof of life was the quietest failure: 8 in 10 businesses had posted nothing anywhere in the last 30 days, so to a customer checking, they read as closed. And AI search averaged 0.2 out of 1, with 6 in 10 earning nothing, which means no AI engine names them and their facts are not in a form AI can read.

Some trades do better than others

Dentists scored highest, at 4.0 on average across 21 practices. Heating and cooling firms came next at 3.6. Electricians averaged 3.0. Then the numbers fall away: garage door firms 2.6, plumbers 1.8, cleaners 1.6, roofers 1.6. More than half of the roofing firms we scored got nothing at all. That is not a judgement on the work. Roofers and cleaners are often the busiest people in the trade, and the website is the job that never gets done. It is also the job that decides who gets the next call.

What the numbers mean for an owner

A score of 2.5 does not mean a bad business. It means a good business that customers cannot find, cannot check, and cannot reach. The customer searches, finds a competitor with a claimed profile and recent reviews, and calls them instead. Nothing about that is a marketing problem in the abstract. It is a job, booked by someone else, this week.

The fixes are also smaller than the gap looks. Three of them cost nothing but an afternoon. Claim the Google profile and fill it in: hours, services, areas, real photos. Post something real once a week, a finished job, a team photo, a note that you are open. And make the name, phone number, and address identical everywhere they appear, because Google and the AI tools trust consistency and skip confusion. The website is the bigger job, and it is the one we do: fast on a phone, tap-to-call, a clear way to ask for the job, and pages that say plainly what you do and where.

How we counted, and what we did not do

Every business in this set was scored the same way, on the same ten checks, by hand, in October 2026. The set is the businesses we called and scored, not a random sample of all Canadian businesses, and it leans toward the trades we serve: roofing, cleaning, plumbing, heating and cooling, dental, electrical, and garage doors. No business is named here, and no score is quoted for any individual business. The averages are the story, not the names. If your business is in this set and you want your score, ask us and we will send it.