Method
How We Score Web Design Companies
The websbz Score runs from 0 to 100. It counts only things anyone can check, and it never counts money. Here is every part of it.
The Four Parts
| Part | Weight | What we measure |
|---|---|---|
| Own Site Quality | 35 | Our lab test of the firm’s home page with Lighthouse on a mobile profile. Performance counts 40 percent of this part, accessibility 30, best practices 15 and SEO basics 15. |
| Proof of Work | 30 | 4 points for each named project up to 4, 1 point for each named client up to 8, 2 points for each award the firm lists up to 3, and up to 8 points for live client sites we found carrying the firm’s footer credit. |
| Openness | 20 | Street address 5, phone 4, founding year 3, team size 3, a published starting price 5. Each counts only if it is printed on the firm’s own site. |
| Tenure | 15 | 0.75 points per year in business, from the founding year the firm states, up to 15 at twenty years. |
Where the Evidence Comes From
Every profile starts on the firm’s own website. We read its home, about, work and contact pages and keep the links at the bottom of each profile. A fact goes in only when we saw it printed there. If a page did not say it, the field stays empty and earns nothing.
The lab test runs Lighthouse against the firm’s home page with a mobile profile and default throttling. One run per refresh, from our desk. We publish the raw numbers next to every score so you can rerun the test and compare.
Signed work comes from a crawl of more than 40,000 local business websites drawn from public business listings. We read each footer for a design credit and count the live sites that name each firm. A credit only counts when the client site is live and the link points at the firm.
PageRanker Score
Every firm also shows a PageRanker Score, a link authority number from 0 to 100 on the same scale people use for domain rating. It starts from where the firm’s domain sits in the public link graph of the whole web, published each quarter by Common Crawl, and a commercial link index can only raise it. It comes from PageRanker, a link authority tool from the same owner as websbz. Each firm’s number is computed the same way, and nobody sets a number by hand. It is shown beside the websbz Score and breaks ties in the SEO, AEO and GEO lists. It does not change the websbz Score.
Reach
Reach is a second score, from 0 to 100, kept apart from the websbz Score. It measures how far a firm’s work reaches, not how good it is. The biggest share is live client sites that carry the firm’s credit when we load them ourselves. The rest comes from the clients a firm names and how large they are, its offices and countries, its team size and its years in business. Every input comes from the firm’s own site or our own fetch. A fact a firm does not publish counts as zero and shows as not published. Reach never changes a websbz Score, a rank or a seal on any other list. The Widest Reach award ranks the top 25 by Reach.
| Part | Points | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Verified client sites | 40 | 40 times log10(1 + n) divided by log10(201), where n is the number of live client sites that carry the firm’s credit on our own fetch. 1 site earns 5.2, 12 sites 19.4, 50 sites 29.7 and 200 or more the full 40. |
| Named clients | 10 | 1 point for each client the firm names on its own site, up to 10. |
| Client scale | 10 | 2 points for each named client with an English Wikipedia page whose short description names an organization, like a company, brand, university or museum, up to 5 such clients. |
| Offices | 10 | 2.5 points per office, the headquarters plus the other offices the firm lists, up to 4. |
| Countries | 10 | Offices in 1 country earn 0, 2 countries 5, 3 countries 7.5 and 4 or more 10. |
| Team size | 12 | 12 times log10(people) divided by log10(200), from a head count printed on the firm’s own site. A solo studio earns 0, 10 people 5.2, 50 people 8.9 and 200 or more the full 12. |
| Years | 8 | 8 times years in business divided by 25, from the founding year the firm states, up to 8. |
Client scale uses the short description on the client’s English Wikipedia page. A client without one counts as a named client but adds nothing to scale. This favors clients known in English, and we say so. An office city with no country beside it is read as being in the firm’s home country.
Work Tiles
Work tiles on a profile are live client sites that carry the firm’s credit when we load them ourselves. We take candidates from our footer crawl, from project links on the firm’s own work pages and from sites a firm sends us through its profile. A site shows only if the live page links to the firm in its footer or names it beside a credit like site by or designed by, is not hidden from search engines and is not a demo or staging address. The same check runs for every firm. Firms can submit their sites, and many studios do not sign their work, so a low count can mean unsigned work, not less work. A site a firm sends us that loads but does not carry its credit is listed on the profile as added, not signed. Added sites never count toward the websbz Score, Reach or any award.
How Awards Are Given
Every list is sorted by websbz Score, with Own Site Quality as the tie breaker. First place earns a Landmark seal in platinum. Second and third earn Cited in copper. Every other firm in a city, country, trade or studio list earns Noted in graphite. The world ranking lists every lab tested firm and gives no seal of its own. The twelve highest scores of the year across all lists earn The Good Build in gold. Special categories, like the fastest studio website, award only the top three.
Firms That Share an Owner With websbz
A few web design firms on our lists share an owner with websbz. Each one says so on its own profile, with the line websbz and this firm share an owner. They get the same formula and the same research as every other firm, nobody adjusts their numbers, and they land wherever the score puts them. Their signed sites are counted the same way as every other firm. No firm paid to be ranked, including these.
What We Leave Out on Purpose
We do not count star ratings, review totals, ad spend, follower counts or awards bought from pay to enter programs. We do not take fees for entry, rank or seals. Firms do not see scores before they go live.
This Edition in Numbers
Changes to the Method
- October 24, 2026. First edition. Four parts with the weights above.
- October 24, 2026. The top tier is now called The Good Build. Added a statewide Utah list. Added the 2025 Look Back, a separate list scored in October 2026 from 2025 archived copies, and Editor’s Picks, which are chosen by the editors and never scored. Neither one changes the websbz Score.
- October 25, 2026. Added Reach, a separate 0 to 100 score for how far a firm’s work reaches, the Widest Reach award, rankings by country, a world ranking, work tiles on every profile and a way for firms to submit their client sites. Reach does not change the websbz Score.
Questions People Ask
Can a firm pay to rank higher?
No. websbz does not sell rank, placement, awards or seals. There is no paid tier. If we ever take a sponsor, we will name it on this page and it will never touch a score.
Why test the firm’s own website?
It is the one site every firm controls fully, with no client in the way. A studio that ships a slow or hard to use home page for itself is telling you something.
Why not use reviews?
Review counts are easy to buy and hard to check. We use evidence anyone can verify in a minute, like a live site with the firm’s name in the footer.
How often do scores change?
We retest and reread on each refresh. Every page shows the date its data was checked. This edition was built on October 24, 2026.
A fact about my firm is wrong. What do I do?
Send a correction from the nominate page. Show us the page on your own site where the right fact appears and we will update the record and the score.
Can a firm ask to be removed?
Yes. Ask from the nominate page and we will take the profile down. Awards that firm held move to the next firm in line on the next refresh.