I checked dozens of UK local business websites by hand. Here's what actually breaks, and the tool I built to do it for me

I'm Alex, a 19-year-old from Ipswich. Over the past month, I've been tackling a mundane task: visiting UK towns and noting the issues with each business's website. This includes checking if the domain is reachable, validating the SSL certificate, verifying an email address, and confirming that a contact form works. The most common problems I've encountered are the domain no longer resolving, the directory listing still showing the old information, and a complete lack of a published email address.

For instance, in Wakefield, three businesses had domains that returned NXDOMAIN on five different public DNS servers. Often, business owners aren't aware of these issues because no one has pointed them out. Similarly, in Bristol, none of the 25 accountants listed a published email address on their own site. This lack of contact information makes it difficult for potential clients to reach out.

Additionally, many websites have contact forms that simply discard messages, which can only be discovered by sending and waiting for a response. Developing this tool wasn't a walk in the park; it required visiting each website manually and recording every issue, which isn't scalable. To address this, I created LeadDrive (https://leaddrive.uk), a service where you input a trade and a city, and it retrieves the business's phone number, operating email (or whether it's not found), and timestamps each check so users can verify the results themselves.

The platform doesn't send any emails or messages but provides CSV/XLSX files or webhooks for integration with tools like Zapier or Make on higher plans. For developers who enjoy tinkering with web technologies, I'll explain that DNS checks are conducted through multiple public resolvers, and that the tool only records contact-form delivery rather than assuming its presence.

Looking back, I made a few mistakes early on, such as relying on wildcard DNS records as evidence of a site's functionality and hastily labeling a site as 'slow' without a proper measurement tool. Now, if I can't measure something, it won't be included in the output. My free tier allows for 150 checks per month without requiring a credit card, with paid plans starting at £49 per month for 1,000 credits.

As a first-time founder, I'd rather share that I have no revenue yet than pretend otherwise. If you're working on tools for local businesses, I'd love to hear your ideas for additional checks.