How often is the contact path on a small business website broken?
19 of the 467 small business websites we scanned (4%) had at least one contact route that cannot work. The most common problem: a button or link that goes nowhere, on 10 sites.
Sample: 56 US gym, yoga and pilates studio websites (of 400 listed with a website in Portland, Austin, Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago); 55 UK gym, yoga and pilates studio websites (of 407 listed with a website in London, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow); 56 Dutch gym, yoga and pilates studio websites (of 242 listed with a website in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Eindhoven, Groningen); 54 US plumber, electrician, heating and roofing websites (of 134 listed with a website in Portland, Austin, Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago); 50 UK plumber, electrician, heating and roofing websites (of 54 listed with a website in London, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow); 26 Dutch plumber, electrician, heating and roofing websites (of 26 listed with a website in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Eindhoven, Groningen); 55 US veterinary clinic websites (of 195 listed with a website in Portland, Austin, Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago); 59 UK veterinary clinic websites (of 113 listed with a website in London, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow); 56 Dutch veterinary clinic websites (of 75 listed with a website in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Eindhoven, Groningen). Scanned on 25 September 2026.
Small mistakes, lost customers
10 sites had a button or link that goes nowhere. A visitor clicks, nothing happens, and they leave.
6 published an email address on a domain that cannot receive mail, usually a typo in the domain or a domain the business let lapse. The site looks fine, and mail sent to the address never arrives. The business does not notice, because it never sees the lost messages.
By sector and country
US gym, yoga and pilates studio websites: 3 of 56 had a broken contact route.
UK gym, yoga and pilates studio websites: 2 of 55 had a broken contact route.
Dutch gym, yoga and pilates studio websites: 1 of 56 had a broken contact route.
US plumber, electrician, heating and roofing websites: 5 of 54 had a broken contact route.
UK plumber, electrician, heating and roofing websites: 2 of 50 had a broken contact route.
Dutch plumber, electrician, heating and roofing websites: 1 of 26 had a broken contact route.
US veterinary clinic websites: 1 of 55 had a broken contact route.
UK veterinary clinic websites: 1 of 59 had a broken contact route.
Dutch veterinary clinic websites: 3 of 56 had a broken contact route.
Where does your own website stand?
The free check tests every contact route on your site, including whether your email domain can receive mail.
Check my websiteHow we measured this
We drew independent businesses with a website from OpenStreetMap in six cities per country (the US, the UK, the Netherlands), skipped chains and social media profiles, and picked up to 60 at random per sector and country.
Our scanner read each homepage and its contact pages the way a visitor's browser receives them, and looked for booking systems, booking buttons, chat, forms and published email addresses. It checked that every published email domain can receive mail.
33 sites were left out of the figures because they did not load or no longer belonged to the business. We contacted nobody and name no business.