The State of Small Business Websites 2026: Core Web Vitals and Technical SEO Dataset (n=292)

This dataset accompanies the study “The State of Small Business Websites 2026” by Axion Deep Digital. It measures Core Web Vitals and technical SEO health across small business websites using the DeepAudit AI engine, which combines real-browser Lighthouse audits with rule-based checks rather than relying on raw HTML parsing alone. Sample: 292 small business domains. Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse statistics are calculated across the 191 sites that returned valid mobile Lighthouse data. Desktop metrics are reported where valid data was available. Headline findings: • 96.9% of sites fail at least one Core Web Vital on mobile, while only 3.1% pass all three. • 100% fail the axe-core Link Labels accessibility check. • 86.4% have mobile Largest Contentful Paint worse than 4.0 seconds, placing them in the poor range. • 72.4% have mobile First Contentful Paint worse than 3.0 seconds. The findings are descriptive, and the study makes no causal claims. The dataset is anonymized at the row level, with domains removed so that individual businesses are not identifiable. Columns: site_id: Anonymized identifier. state: U.S. state. overall_score: Composite website audit score. overall_grade: Letter grade corresponding to the overall score. mobile_lh_valid: Indicates whether valid mobile Lighthouse data was returned. mobile_performance: Mobile Lighthouse performance score. mobile_seo: Mobile Lighthouse SEO score. mobile_accessibility: Mobile Lighthouse accessibility score. mobile_best_practices: Mobile Lighthouse best-practices score. mobile_lcp_seconds: Mobile Largest Contentful Paint in seconds. mobile_fcp_seconds: Mobile First Contentful Paint in seconds. mobile_cls: Mobile Cumulative Layout Shift score. mobile_lcp_bucket: Mobile LCP classification: poor, needs improvement, or good. mobile_fcp_bucket: Mobile FCP classification: poor, needs improvement, or good. mobile_cls_bucket: Mobile CLS classification: poor, needs improvement, or good. mobile_cwv_all_three: Indicates whether the site passes all three measured mobile Core Web Vitals. desktop_lh_valid: Indicates whether valid desktop Lighthouse data was returned. desktop_performance: Desktop Lighthouse performance score. desktop_seo: Desktop Lighthouse SEO score. desktop_accessibility: Desktop Lighthouse accessibility score. desktop_best_practices: Desktop Lighthouse best-practices score. desktop_lcp_seconds: Desktop Largest Contentful Paint in seconds. desktop_fcp_seconds: Desktop First Contentful Paint in seconds. open_pagerank: Open PageRank score. check_link_labels: Pass/fail flag for the link-labels accessibility check. check_focus_indicators: Pass/fail flag for visible keyboard-focus indicators. check_form_labels: Pass/fail flag for form-field labels. check_html_validation: Pass/fail flag for HTML validation. check_h1_tag: Pass/fail flag for the presence and use of an H1 tag. check_json_ld: Pass/fail flag for JSON-LD structured data. check_sitemap_xml: Pass/fail flag for sitemap.xml availability. check_hsts: Pass/fail flag for HTTP Strict Transport Security. check_primary_keyword: Pass/fail flag for primary-keyword usage. a11y_checks_total: Total number of accessibility checks performed. a11y_checks_failed: Number of accessibility checks failed. structured_data_checks_total: Total number of structured-data checks performed. structured_data_checks_failed: Number of structured-data checks failed. security_checks_total: Total number of security checks performed. security_checks_failed: Number of security checks failed. technical_checks_total: Total number of technical checks performed. technical_checks_failed: Number of technical checks failed. Full report, charts, and methodology: https://www.axiondeepdigital.com/research/state-of-small-business-websites-2026