We analyzed 688 real local businesses: the state of small-business websites in 2026
Only 2.7% of small-business websites qualify as genuinely modern: 16 of the 602 sites in our study passed both a strict quality screen and an AI review. Most local businesses now have a website, 87.5% (602 of 688), but 10.5% of those sites fail to load at all (63 of 602) and 86.9% (523 of 602) look dated, thin, or broken. This page publishes the full findings from our original analysis of 688 confidently matched US local businesses, assessed in June 2026.
The headline findings
Every number below comes from one dataset: 688 US local businesses confidently matched to a real business listing via the Google Places API, with each listed website's homepage fetched and assessed in June 2026. Full definitions are in the methodology.
87.5% of local businesses have a website (602 of 688). Having a site is no longer the differentiator. Having one that works is.
1 in 10 listed websites is dead. 10.5% of sites (63 of 602) failed to load entirely: a network error, an HTTP error, or an empty page where a business should be.
Only 2.7% of sites are genuinely modern (16 of 602). The other 97.3% are broken (10.5%, 63 of 602) or rated dated or weak (86.9%, 523 of 602).
How many small businesses have a website at all?
Of the 688 confidently matched businesses, 602 (87.5%) have a website listed on their Google Business Profile and 86 (12.5%) have none. The old talking point that most small businesses lack a website is out of date. In 2026 the real story has moved one level down: the site exists, but it often does not do its job.
The no-website rate varies sharply by industry. Among the 9 industries in our data with at least 15 businesses, auto repair stood out: 30.8% of car repair and maintenance businesses had no website at all (8 of 26), more than double any other industry we measured.
| Industry | Businesses (n) | No website |
|---|---|---|
| Car repair and maintenance | 26 | 30.8% (8 of 26) |
| Store (retail) | 21 | 14.3% (3 of 21) |
| General contractor | 99 | 11.1% (11 of 99) |
| Health | 27 | 11.1% (3 of 27) |
| Other local point of interest | 18 | 11.1% (2 of 18) |
How many small-business websites fail or underperform?
Existence is a low bar, so we assessed every listed site. First, 63 of the 602 sites (10.5%) failed to load at assessment time. For the 539 sites that did load and joined our full assessment data, here is how they performed on the checks that matter most to a customer:
Some individual findings worth calling out:
- Dead buttons are common. 12.8% of loading sites (69 of 539) had at least one dead call to action on the homepage: a link that goes nowhere or a button that does nothing. That is a customer with intent, lost at the moment of action.
- Thin content is widespread. 16.0% of loading sites (86 of 539) had fewer than 150 visible words on the homepage. The median homepage carried just 511 words. Because we measure the served HTML, sites that render their content with client-side JavaScript can read artificially low, so treat 16.0% as an upper bound.
- Basic SEO hygiene is missing on a quarter of sites. 95.7% had a title tag (515 of 538) but only 72.1% had a meta description (388 of 538).
- A small number are parked. 0.4% of loading sites (2 of 539) were parked or placeholder pages.
Put together, the overall quality picture is stark: of all 602 listed websites, 10.5% are broken (63 of 602), 86.9% are dated or weak (523 of 602), and 2.7% are genuinely modern (16 of 602). Across all 688 matched businesses, only 2.3% (16 of 688) have a website we could call modern.
What are small-business websites built on?
We checked each loading homepage for known site-builder fingerprints (Wix, Squarespace, WordPress themes, and similar). 48.8% of loading sites (263 of 539) showed a detected builder fingerprint. Detection is fingerprint-based, so this is a floor: a builder site whose fingerprint we did not catch counts as not detected, and the true share is likely higher.
Among the 263 sites where a builder was detected, the breakdown:
WordPress dominates the detected-builder group at 67.3% (177 of 263), which matches its long head start in the small-business market. The drag-and-drop platforms, Wix (37), Squarespace (27), Duda (12), Weebly (4), and Google Sites (3), together account for 83 of the 263 detected sites. If you are weighing a builder against a custom build, our guide to Wix versus a custom website covers the tradeoffs in plain language.
Which industries have the worst websites?
Car repair is the standout on both axes we measured. It had the highest no-website rate, 30.8% (8 of 26), and among its sites that load, the highest rate of dated design signals: 40.0% (6 of 15). The sample per industry is modest, so read these as strong directional signals rather than precise rankings.
| Industry | Loading sites (n) | At least one dated signal |
|---|---|---|
| Car repair and maintenance | 15 | 40.0% (6 of 15) |
| Manufacturer | 29 | 37.9% (11 of 29) |
| Store (retail) | 17 | 29.4% (5 of 17) |
| General contractor | 84 | 27.4% (23 of 84) |
| Other local point of interest | 15 | 20.0% (3 of 15) |
General contractors deserve a special mention because of their volume: they were the largest industry in our data (99 businesses), and more than a quarter of their loading sites (27.4%, 23 of 84) showed at least one dated signal.
How rare is a genuinely modern small-business website?
We applied a strict two-stage screen. First, a heuristic pass looked for sites that are responsive, carry real content (at least 300 words), have no dead calls to action, no dated signals, no builder fingerprint, and at least 3 verified genuinely distinct pages. Only 12.4% of loading sites (67 of 539) passed that heuristic screen. Each of those was then reviewed by an AI pass tuned to confirm genuine excellence, and only 16 were confirmed modern. The other 52 reviewed sites were kept in the ordinary pool.
That is 2.7% of the 602 listed sites, or 2.3% of all 688 matched businesses. What those 16 sites do differently is its own study: read what makes a modern small-business website, where we compare them head to head against the other 523 loading sites.
Wondering where your own site lands? Our free website audit runs your site through the same kinds of checks used in this study, load, mobile, content, CTAs, and SEO basics, and scores it in about a minute.
Methodology, honestly stated
Source. The study covers 688 US local businesses from a 1,230-business dataset. We kept only businesses that could be confidently matched to a real business listing via the Google Places API (agreement on name, location, phone, or website domain), so every row represents a verified real business. Percentages about website presence use all 688; percentages about site quality use the 602 businesses with a listed site, or the 539 loading sites joined to our full assessment data, and each figure on this page states its own numerator and denominator.
Assessment. Each listed website's homepage was fetched and assessed in June 2026. A site "fails to load" if the request produced a network error, an HTTP status of 400 or higher, or an empty body. "Responsive" means the homepage declares a viewport meta tag. "Thin content" means fewer than 150 visible words in the served HTML. A "dead call to action" is a link with an empty or placeholder destination or a button wired to nothing. "Single-page" means no distinct internal subpage links were found on the homepage. "Dated signals" are explicit dated design markers, a copyright year of 2019 or older, or a non-responsive layout. "Modern" requires passing the full heuristic screen and a confirming AI review.
Known limits. Word counts are measured on server-rendered HTML, so sites that render content with client-side JavaScript can read artificially low; the thin-content figure is an upper bound. Builder detection is fingerprint-based, so the 48.8% builder share is a floor. The modern group is small (16 sites), so comparisons against it are directional. Two of the deep-assessment checks cover 537 or 538 of the 539 loading sites where a specific signal could not be parsed. Industry cuts include only the 9 industries with at least 15 businesses.
Frequently asked questions
How many small businesses have a website in 2026?
In our study of 688 confidently matched US local businesses, 87.5% (602 of 688) have a website listed on their Google Business Profile, and 12.5% (86 of 688) have none at all. Having a website is now the norm; having a good one is not.
What percentage of small-business websites are outdated?
86.9% of the 602 websites in our study (523 of 602) were rated dated or weak, meaning they showed problems like dated design signals, thin content, dead links or buttons, or a broken mobile experience. Only 2.7% (16 of 602) passed both a strict heuristic screen and an AI review as genuinely modern.
How many small-business websites fail to load?
10.5% of the websites in our study (63 of 602) failed to load entirely at assessment time, returning a network error, an HTTP error status, or an empty page. Roughly one in ten small businesses with a listed website is paying for an address that leads nowhere.
What is the most common website builder for small businesses?
WordPress, by a wide margin. Of the 263 loading sites where we detected a known builder fingerprint, 177 ran WordPress (67.3%), followed by Wix with 37 (14.1%), Squarespace with 27 (10.3%), Duda with 12 (4.6%), Weebly with 4 (1.5%), Google Sites with 3 (1.1%), and other builders with 3 (1.1%). Because detection is fingerprint-based, the true builder share is at least 48.8% of the 539 loading sites and likely higher.
How was this study conducted?
We started from a dataset of 1,230 US small businesses and kept the 688 that could be confidently matched to a real business via the Google Places API. For each matched business we recorded whether a website was listed, then fetched and assessed each homepage in June 2026 for load success, responsiveness, content depth, dead calls to action, internal pages, builder fingerprints, and dated design signals.
Keep reading: the companion study on what makes a modern small-business website, or browse all of our plain-language website guides.
See how your own site scores
Run your site through our free website audit, the same kinds of checks used in this study, and get a scored report in about a minute. If it is time for a site that works, custom builds start at $599 on the pricing page.