Data Studies
Studies on how Google ranks, displays and indexes pages: title and meta description rewrites, ranking churn, search features, schema markup, backlinks and on-page basics. The data comes from Google US search results on desktop and mobile, the websites behind US Google Business Profiles across dozens of industries, homepage code and Google Lighthouse results from the public HTTP Archive crawl, site popularity from Google's Chrome UX Report, and backlink records for small business websites. Each study lists its sample and method, so you can judge how far the findings apply to your own site.
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A YouTube video appears on Google's first page for 80.3% of roofing searches, four in five, against 34.2% of searches across 24 industries. YouTube is the most common website on Google's first page, ahead of Reddit and Facebook.
89% of business homepages built on Webflow pass four basic SEO checks, the best of any major website platform, against 62% on WordPress and 56% on Wix. Each platform has its own common gap, and most are a setting away from fixed.
41.3% of websites don't point search engines to their XML sitemap in robots.txt, a one-line fix, and the most visited sites skip it more often than small ones: 45.9% of the 10k most visited websites leave it out, against 40.6% of sites outside the top million.
68% of US business keywords on Google score under 30 out of 100 for keyword difficulty, the range SEO tools label easy, and the median keyword scores 18. Mortgage keywords are the hardest, with a median of 37, more than seven times pest control's 5.
58.8% of US business searches on Google come from people comparing options or ready to buy, and the share runs from 88.5% for moving companies to 17.3% for plastic surgery, where most searchers are still researching.
For 49.9% of Google searches, the top three results on a phone differ from the top three on a computer, and the #1 result itself changes 18.8% of the time. Home remodeling searches differ most, at 67.2%.
Google and Bing rank the same page first for only 16.5% of searches, so for 83.5% of searches the two engines send the top spot to different pages, and for 64.9% to different websites entirely.
Google changes the page title it shows for 64.5% of its top 10 results, and shows the title exactly as the website wrote it for just 27.2%. Titles of 61 to 80 characters are rewritten most, 76.3% of the time.
Google ignores the page's own meta description for 59.7% of its top 10 results that have one, and once pages with no description are counted, it shows its own text under 67.3% of first-page links.
82.2% of law firm websites don't use Attorney or LegalService schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a law firm, and 39.8% miss at least one of four basic SEO elements on their homepage, above the 37.9% average across 15 industries.
76.4% of dental practice websites don't use Dentist schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a dental practice, even though dental websites handle the other SEO basics better than most: 30.2% miss a basic element on their homepage, against a 37.9% average across 15 industries.
85.5% of medical practice websites don't use medical schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a clinic or physician, and 36.2% have no schema markup of any kind, above the 32.9% average across 15 industries.
85.3% of HVAC company websites don't use HVACBusiness schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a heating and cooling company, even though HVAC websites handle the other SEO basics better than any of 15 industries: 26% miss a basic element on their homepage, against a 37.9% average.
93.4% of plumbing company websites don't use Plumber schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a plumber, even though plumbing websites handle the other SEO basics better than most: 30.5% miss a basic element on their homepage, against a 37.9% average across 15 industries.
88.3% of roofing company websites don't use RoofingContractor schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a roofer, even though roofing websites handle the other SEO basics better than most: 28.1% miss a basic element on their homepage, against a 37.9% average across 15 industries.
86.3% of real estate websites don't use RealEstateAgent or RealEstateListing schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to an agent or lists homes, and 46.1% have no schema markup at all, the second highest rate of 15 industries.
84.7% of restaurant websites don't use restaurant schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a restaurant, and 46.2% miss a basic SEO element on their homepage, the third highest rate of 15 industries.
97% of accounting firm websites don't use AccountingService schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to an accounting firm, and 53.1% miss a basic SEO element on their homepage, the worst rate of 15 industries.
72.1% of insurance agency websites don't use InsuranceAgency schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to an insurance agency, while 31.5% miss a basic SEO element on their homepage, the fifth lowest rate of 15 industries.
75.3% of financial advisor websites don't use FinancialService schema, the code that tells Google a site belongs to a financial firm, and 44.8% miss a basic SEO element on their homepage, the fifth highest rate of 15 industries.
94.6% of SaaS websites don't use SoftwareApplication or WebApplication schema, the code that tells search engines a site sells software, and 44% have no schema markup of any kind, against a 32.9% average across 15 industries.
48.5% of manufacturing websites miss at least one of four basic SEO elements on their homepage, the second highest rate of 15 industries and well above the 37.9% average. One in three manufacturing homepages has no main heading.
85.9% of hotel websites don't use Hotel or LodgingBusiness schema, the code that tells search engines a site belongs to a place to stay, and 38.1% miss at least one of four basic SEO elements on their homepage, against a 37.9% average across 15 industries.
26.9% of small business websites link from their own pages to an old address that redirects, about 30 times the 0.9% that have a chain of two redirects in a row, the redirect chains SEO tools warn about. The everyday housekeeping faults are the common ones: 18.3% of small business websites reuse page titles and 12.8% hide missing pages from Google.
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