Data Studies
Research on how brands are covered and talked about online, and where coverage turns into links. Studies measure the tone and volume of web mentions for big brands in industries such as banking, airlines, retail and telecom, rating and reply patterns on Trustpilot and Tripadvisor, and the links journalists include in articles that rank in Google News. Backlink data shows how linking pages label their links. Use them to plan PR that builds authority for search, not a one-day spike in mentions.
19 studies · Need help acting on them? See our digital PR services.
62.4% of the companies whose websites show up most in US Google search results have a Trustpilot score below 3 stars out of 5. Delivery apps and mobile carriers sit at the bottom of seven industries, with every company below 3 stars, while companies with 10,000 or more reviews mostly escape the trend.
71.3% of the companies whose websites show up most in US Google results did not reply to any of their recent Trustpilot reviews. Across all their reviews, companies reply 20.3% of the time, and they answer 1-star complaints less than half as often as 5-star praise.
70% of news articles that rank in Google News never link to a company or commercial website, and 48.9% link to no outside website at all. The beat matters: about 45.5% of tech news stories link to a company website, against about 29% of finance stories.
Just 0.4% of links from news publishers carry the "sponsored" label Google asks sites to put on paid links, against 2.8% of links from online stores. 96.1% of news publisher links carry no label of any kind, so almost every link a brand earns from the press counts in full.
Top-ranked US hotels post a management reply under 70.2% of their recent Tripadvisor reviews, about seven times the 9.7% rate for restaurants in the same cities. Half of hotels answer 90% or more of their reviews.
When a news site mentions a brand, the mention is negative 38.5% of the time, against 26.2% on blogs, stores and other websites. Across the web, 30.7% of recent brand mentions are negative, almost as many as the 35.4% that are positive, and insurance brands follow the same pattern, with 39.2% of their news mentions negative.
AT&T is named on 197.6 million web pages, more than any other major US brand, ahead of Mastercard at 175.6 million and Microsoft at 120 million. The ten most-mentioned brands take 55.7% of all online mentions of the 254 brands ranked.
The New York Times is linked from 85 of 2,987 news articles, more than any other website, ahead of ESPN and USA Today. Yet no source dominates: 73.3% of the websites journalists link to appear in just one article.
A local news article links to 0.76 business websites on average, against 0.35 for an article from a national outlet, 2.2 times as many. National outlets link out more overall, but they spend those links on other media.
When a news site mentions an airline, the mention is negative 54% of the time, against 32% on blogs, stores and other websites, the widest news gap of eight industries. Across the web, 38.1% of recent airline brand mentions are negative.
40.6% of recent online mentions of bank brands are negative, the highest share of eight industries, and just 25.2% are positive. Capital One gets the most coverage and has the mildest tone of any bank.
Only 23% of recent online mentions of telecom brands are positive, the lowest share of eight industries and about half the 43.6% for hotel brands. 35.1% are negative, and AT&T gets two thirds of all telecom coverage.
Starbucks is named on 10.6 million web pages, 28% of all online coverage of fast food brands and more than KFC (3.9 million) and McDonald's (3.5 million) put together. It also has one of the mildest tones, at 12.4% negative, against 26.2% for fast food overall.
Temu is named on 69.7 million web pages, more than eBay (63.2 million) and more than twice Walmart (26.7 million). Across 30 retail brands, 29.4% of recent online mentions are negative, rising to 39.6% on news pages.
Disney+ is named on 71.5 million web pages, just ahead of Paramount+ (69.3 million) and Netflix (66.1 million), and all three keep negative mentions near 13%. Across 30 streaming brands, 27.5% of recent mentions are negative and 41.3% positive.
Just 17.9% of recent online mentions of hotel and lodging brands are negative, the lowest share of eight industries and less than half the 40.6% for banks. 43.6% are positive, the highest share of any industry.
72% of online retailers on Trustpilot have a TrustScore below 3 out of 5, and 60.9% of their recent reviews are 1-star. The retailers that score well are mostly specialist stores, and eleven of them reply to 90% or more of their reviews.
73% of banks on Trustpilot have a TrustScore below 3 out of 5, and 69.9% of their recent reviews are 1-star. Credit unions average 3 stars against 2 for other banks, and a credit union tops the list at 4.9.
Insurers rated 4 stars or more on Trustpilot reply to 48% of their recent reviews, five times the 9.6% reply rate of insurers rated below 3. Most insurers are in the second group: 73% score below 3 stars.
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