Professional services businesses — law firms, medical practices, HVAC companies, auto repair shops — are the backbone of Alabama's local economy. Most of them have websites that haven't been touched in years. Slow load times, broken mobile layouts, and core web vitals that would make Google frown.
The Alabama Web Score is a public record of where things stand. No gatekeeping, no paywall. If a business scores poorly, that's visible. If they improve, that shows up too.
The data is updated quarterly. We use Google's own PageSpeed Insights API — the same tool Google uses to evaluate sites for search ranking.
All scores are generated using the Google PageSpeed Insights API v5, which runs Lighthouse against both mobile and desktop user agents. Each site is tested fresh at scoring time.
The majority of local service searches happen on mobile. Poor mobile performance is the single biggest conversion killer for professional services sites.
Desktop still matters, particularly for B2B clients and professional engagements where the initial site visit happens in an office.
A fast page that is difficult to use on mobile — small tap targets, tiny fonts, horizontal scrolling — is still a bad experience. Usability is scored separately from raw speed.
LCP measures how quickly the main visible content loads. Google uses it as a primary ranking signal and it correlates strongly with bounce rate.
Scores are refreshed each quarter: Q1 (January), Q2 (April), Q3 (July), Q4 (October). Each scoring run checks the live URL at that moment — a redesign or performance fix will show up in the next report.
We research professional services businesses in Alabama and add them to the database. Anyone can also submit a site for consideration using the form below. Submissions are reviewed and scored in the next quarterly run.