Blog · Jun 9, 2026
81% of sites score 40 or below on FAQ
Four in five small business sites show no question-and-answer content our scanner can find. It is also the easiest gap to close.
Key takeaways
- 8,440 of 10,369 scored sites (81.4%) scored exactly 40, the lowest FAQ score our scan gives, which means we found no FAQ content.
- Only 137 sites (1.3%) scored 100.
- In our scoring, no FAQ costs 10 points, and a strong one adds up to 10.
What the numbers show
FAQ signals are the weakest category in our study, with an average of 43.9 out of 100. Here is how sites scored:
| FAQ score | Sites | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 40 (no FAQ found) | 8,440 | 81.4% |
| 50 | 1,240 | 12.0% |
| 70 | 302 | 2.9% |
| 80 | 169 | 1.6% |
| 90 | 81 | 0.8% |
| 100 | 137 | 1.3% |
Because 40 is the lowest score the check gives, the sites at 40 have one thing in common: we found no FAQ content on them.
What "FAQ signals" means
When someone asks an assistant "do you know a plumber who does emergency calls?", it looks for content shaped like questions and answers. A dedicated FAQ page or a clearly labeled Q&A section, with question-style headings and direct answers in plain text, gives an assistant something concrete to quote. Without it, the assistant has to piece an answer together from other pages, or use someone else's.
Why so many sites have none
It isn't that owners don't know the answers. They give them every day by phone and at the counter. The answers just never reach the website. A page says "Contact us for pricing" instead of answering "How much does it cost?" Many small business sites were built as brochures: a few pages, photos and a contact form.
Why it's the best place to start
Every unanswered question on your site is one an assistant has to answer from elsewhere. And unlike structure or metadata, which need work page by page, an FAQ is one page. In our scoring, going from no FAQ to a basic one removes the 10-point penalty, and a strong one adds up to 10 more.
How to fix it
- List your 10 most common customer questions, in the customer's words.
- Answer each in 2-3 plain sentences with specifics: prices, timelines, service areas, guarantees. Where the honest answer is "it depends," say what it depends on.
- Publish at
yoursite.com/faq, each question as a heading, and link it from your footer and menu. - Ask your web person to add FAQPage structured data so machines can find it.
- Keep it current: add new questions as customers ask them.
Our guide Why FAQ is the easiest score to raise has a five-question starter list.
Send to your web person: > Please create an FAQ page at /faq with our 10 most common customer questions as headings and short answers beneath them. Then add FAQPage structured data (JSON-LD) to the page and link it from the footer and main navigation.
Check your score
Run a scan and look at the FAQ line in your report. If it says 40, you're one of the 81%, and you know exactly what to do.
About this data: 10,369 small business sites scored in October 2026. FAQ distribution counts are from CrawlReady's results data. Scores reflect what AI systems can read and don't guarantee citations.