The Digital Presence Score, explained.
DPS is how we measure the way a local business shows up online: two scores from 0 to 100, measured the same way every time, so you can see what actually moved.
Two scores. 18 axes. One method.
The Digital Presence Score is our own methodology for measuring how a business shows up wherever customers look it up: Google search and Maps, your Business Profile, directories, review sites, social, your website, and the sites that talk about you.
It measures 18 axes. The 11 core axes are each scored from 0 to 100 and grouped into two scores. The other 7 are reported alongside and never blended into either score. Every score records where its data came from and when, so the next audit is measured the same way and the comparison is honest.
Controlled and Earned. Never blended.
One blended number hides which half is the problem. So there are always two, reported side by side.
What you can change directly.
Your Google profile, your website, your listings, your social profiles, how often you publish. You or we can fix these, and the score moves when the fix lands.
What the market grants.
Reviews, links, mentions, search visibility, engagement. These build at the pace customers and other sites give them. We measure them honestly. We never promise them.
A sample scorecard.
Pick any axis to see what it measures, what it looked like for the sample business, and how to improve it.
How complete and accurate your Google Business Profile is: services, hours, photos, categories, and the product catalog.
In the sample: 82/100, 9 of 11 field groups populated. Services detail missing on 4 offerings; product catalog empty.
How to improve it: Fill in every field group, list each service with a description, and keep hours and photos current.
Scorecard values are illustrative, from a fictional composite business. For a real report, see the audit we ran on ourselves. Read the sample report (PDF)
How to improve each one.
Controlled Presence
How complete and accurate your Google Business Profile is: services, hours, photos, categories, and the product catalog.
Improve it: Fill in every field group, list each service with a description, and keep hours and photos current.
Whether your own site says clearly what you do and where: titles, meta descriptions, schema markup, and thin pages.
Improve it: Give every page a specific title and description, add schema, and expand pages that say too little.
How often you publish across your site, your Google profile, and social.
Improve it: Publish on a steady schedule. Consistency matters more than volume.
Whether you have claimed your listings across 16 directories, and whether your name, address, and phone match everywhere.
Improve it: Claim all 16 directories (Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, BBB, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, MapQuest, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor, Nextdoor, Chamber of Commerce, Angi, Thumbtack, Houzz) and fix every mismatch against one master record.
Whether your bios, links, photos, and hours are consistent on every social profile.
Improve it: Match your bio, link, photo, and hours across every profile you keep.
The technical signals machines read first: robots.txt, sitemap, AI-crawler access, and share-card tags.
Improve it: Keep the sitemap clean, let AI crawlers in, and fill in share-card tags on every page.
Earned Presence
Review volume, average rating, and recency across the platforms customers read.
Improve it: Ask after every job and answer every review. Volume builds at the pace customers leave them.
Which other sites link to you, and how much those sites are trusted.
Improve it: Earn links from local and trade sources: suppliers, associations, local press. Never buy them.
Where you are talked about on other sites, with or without a link.
Improve it: Show up where your community talks: local news, podcasts, sponsorships, trade groups.
Where you appear when people search for your name, and for the service you sell in your area.
Improve it: Most of this follows the Controlled work: a complete profile, clear pages, and more reviews.
Whether your audience actually responds: comments, shares, and replies relative to followers.
Improve it: Post things your customers care about, real jobs, real crew, and answer when they reply.
Emerging signals (reported alongside)
Whether your site's business code (schema.org) is complete and error-free, so Google and AI tools read your name, address, phone and hours correctly.
Whether the pages we crawled load, point search engines at the right address, have titles and descriptions, and are reachable through your own links.
Whether images have text descriptions, form fields have labels and your pages declare their language, so screen readers and search engines can use them.
Whether your security certificate is current, your site sends standard security settings, visitors get a cookie choice and a privacy policy, and your email domain is protected.
Whether the name, address and phone number on your site match your Google profile.
How many new Google reviews you got in the last 90 days.
The topics your recent Google reviewers praise and complain about most.
These 7 signals are in every report so you can see them. They are never blended into your Controlled or Earned score.
How the score is weighted, checked, and compared.
Equal weights, every industry
Each axis counts equally within its score. An HVAC contractor and a dental practice are weighted the same way today. We’ll only adjust by industry once we have enough audits in that industry to show it matters, and we’ll say so here when we do.
Hard to game
When a signal looks manufactured, it counts for less. It’s down-weighted, not thrown out, because a rule that deletes signals is its own thing to game. Earned axes are the hardest to fake on purpose.
No score on thin data
If we can’t measure enough of a score’s axes, we don’t report that score. A number built on too little data would look precise and mean nothing.
Change you can trust
Each audit is compared with the last one, axis by axis, using the same method. Moves of three points or less are treated as noise. The change past that is the real result.
Data sources, freshness, and version history: how the score is calculated.
Find out where you stand.
The $500 audit gives you both scores, all 18 axes, and a ranked list of what to fix first. The report is yours whether you work with us or not.
Questions about the method? See the audit FAQ · Client Zero · Full methodology