Three questions that predict your inspection report

The free inspection takes a few seconds. Before you run it, there are three things you can check in about a minute on your own site. Each one predicts what the inspection will find. You can see the first two without a tool, and you can make a good guess at the third.

The inspection confirms these and adds everything else. But knowing the answer before you run it means you will read the report with context, not surprise.

The figures below come from our census records on the day this page was built. A small share of the sites behind them were read by older versions of our inspection, so treat these as a snapshot, not a trend.

Question one: Can you tap your phone number on a phone?

Open your website on a phone. Find your phone number. Tap it.

If the dialler opens, the number works. If nothing happens, or if a search bar appears, the number is plain text and a phone cannot call it.

19,088 of the websites we have measured show a phone number that a phone cannot tap. We give a count, not a share, because the check is asked only when a page shows a number.

Why it matters: many customers look a business up on a phone. A phone number they cannot tap is a phone number they have to memorise, close the browser, open the dialler, and type in. Some will. Many will not. This is one of the checks that counts the most in your score.

The check looks for one small piece of code around the number. A passing site has it, and the number opens the dialler in one tap.

Question two: What does your browser tab say?

Open your website on a desktop browser. Look at the words at the top of the tab, or at the title bar.

If it says your business name and what you do and where you are, it is probably fine. If it says just your business name, or just "Home," or just the web address, the title needs work.

1 in 100 websites we have measured have no page title at all. That is 975 of 78,807 graded sites.

Why it matters: the browser tab title is the same text Google shows as the blue line in search results. It is the exact moment a stranger decides whether to click you or the next name. A title that says only your business name tells a searcher nothing they could not see from the address. A title that says what you do and where you do it gives them a reason to click.

The check reads that title text. A passing title is 10 to 70 characters and not a placeholder like Home. Whether it says what you do and where is yours to judge. It is one setting in whatever manages the site.

Question three: Does your site hand Google your business facts?

This one you cannot check with your eyes. But you can predict it from two questions: Did someone set up your site carefully, with a web person who knew what they were doing? And do you appear on Google Maps with your hours and address listed correctly?

If the answer to both is yes, you probably have structured data in place. If the site was built from a free template, or if your Google listing is sparse, you probably do not.

15,804 of the websites we have measured fail this check. That is a count, not a share: the check is skipped on a page with no phone number, no business facts and no sign of what kind of business it is.

Why it matters: structured data is a small block of code that hands Google your hours, your phone number, what you do, and where you do it. Without it, Google guesses from the rest of the page. Guesses are often wrong or incomplete, and a wrong guess means your listing shows less than it should.

The check looks for that block in the page's code. A passing site has one. It is invisible to visitors, and the report prints what it looked for so a web person can find the spot.

What the inspection adds

These three checks predict a lot, but the inspection runs more. It reads your security settings and how big your page's code is as the server sends it. It also checks whether your images load correctly and whether a visitor can find a way to get in touch. In all it has 40 checks, and some run only on some sites, depending on the kind of business, the state, or what the page shows.

The three questions above are a quick way to arrive with context. The inspection is what you verify them with, and what finds everything else.