A third of UK businesses on Google Maps have no working website — and many of those that do are struggling to keep them up to date
Many UK businesses admit their Google listings still send customers to a dead end, with salons the worst offenders.
A study by Digital Royalty reveals that one-third of UK businesses claiming a Google listing do not have a functional website. This issue is most prevalent in the health and beauty sector, where 53% of businesses lack a working site. Large cities also tend to have poorer results, with a 37% rate compared to 25% in smaller towns.
Many websites that do exist are outdated, with 18.9% displaying a 2024 or earlier copyright year. Additionally, 5.3% of functioning sites fail to load over HTTPS, and 3.3% lack a mobile viewport tag. These findings suggest that the primary problem is the absence of a site rather than its poor quality. If the 33% rate applies to all UK businesses, approximately 490,000 businesses have listings that lead to no site they control.
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