A bad website is one that, opened on a phone, doesn't make it clear within a few seconds what you do, gives no reason to trust you and offers no quick way to get in touch; often it's also a site Google struggles to read. In our test on 9 October 2026 of 45 websites belonging to plumbers, accountants, garages and dentists found on Google, 12 homepages out of 42 didn't even have a tappable phone number.
And none of the owners, probably, knows it.
The reason is simple: a website is almost always judged from the office computer, by looking at the design. The flaws that cost customers are elsewhere:
- the phone number written as plain text, which you can't call with one tap from a mobile;
- the copyright year stuck ten years ago, which tells visitors "nobody comes round here";
- the code visitors never see, where the worst case in our sample hid links to casino websites.
On Google UK's first page for "bad website" (mobile, 10 October 2026) you'll find galleries of ugly designs (Colorlib's 20 examples, KIJO's 32, Weblium's 21), a Pinterest board and a list of 11 design mistakes; the first result is the British Association of Dermatologists, whose initials are BAD. They're good for a laugh at Ling's Cars, but they don't tell a plumber what's wrong with their own site. So we measured it, on real local business websites, with the date and method stated.
And why should you trust our judgement on a website?
Because we see bad websites from the results side. Scovaventi, an Italian food producer, had an online shop with traffic and zero sales, slow and awkward to use on a phone: rebuilt on Shopify, it closed a year with €77,000 in sales and an average basket of €190.
Contesini Consulenze, an Italian consultancy, didn't need a new website. It had a landing page that was hard to use and no conversion tracking: once those two things were fixed, 299 contact requests arrived at €7.20 each, and 68% became a sales opportunity.
Two "bad" websites, two opposite fixes. Here you'll find:
- the test on 45 local business websites, with the full table;
- the 10 signs of a bad website, each with the figure that measures it;
- when fixing is enough and when rebuilding makes sense;
- the 5-minute check to run on your own site, from your phone.
Let's start with the numbers.
The test: 45 local business websites in Italy (and what was in the code)
The sample is made of sites that Google really shows to people looking for a professional. We ran it on the Italian market, where we work. On 9 October 2026 we collected Google Italy's mobile results with DataForSEO for four local searches: "idraulico bologna" (plumber Bologna), "commercialista torino" (accountant Turin), "officina meccanica brescia" (garage Brescia) and "studio dentistico bari" (dental practice Bari). From the organic results and the "Related websites" box we took 45 business domains, excluding directories, portals and chains.
For each domain we downloaded the homepage from the visilay.com server, simulating a smartphone browser, and analysed the HTML the site sends. We didn't execute JavaScript: some checks, for example on the H1, are therefore an overestimate for sites built with page builders that generate everything in the browser.
| Homepage check | Result | Out of 42 readable homepages |
|---|---|---|
| Domains without a usable website (empty hosting page, hacked homepage, JavaScript-only page with the builder's name in the title) | 3 of 45 | n/a |
| No HTTPS | 2 | 5% |
| No meta viewport (not built for phones) | 3 | 7% |
| No meta description | 13 | 31% |
| Title longer than 65 characters | 13 | 31% |
| Title of 20 characters or fewer (one is just "index") | 4 | 10% |
| No H1 in the served HTML | 14 | 33% |
| More than one H1 (up to 10) | 5 | 12% |
| No tappable tel: link | 12 | 29% |
| No immediate contact option (no tel:, form or WhatsApp) | 7 | 17% |
| No JSON-LD structured data | 11 | 26% |
| No mention of privacy | 8 | 19% |
| No VAT number on the homepage (required by Italian law) | 3 | 7% |
| Copyright year before 2025 (of 23 that show a year) | 11 of 23 | 48% |
| Images without alt text | 300 of 810 | 37% |
Two things stand out.
First: the "textbook" flaws have almost disappeared. Only three sites out of 42 aren't built for phones and only two lack HTTPS. They're the two flaws the guides go on about most, and they're the rarest.
Second: the flaws that remain are the ones you can't see by looking at the design. The phone number you can't tap, the empty meta description, the year in the footer. That's what the rest of this guide focuses on.
1. It doesn't work on a phone (rare, but when it happens it costs everything)
A site that isn't built for mobile shows a shrunken desktop version on a phone, with text you have to pinch to read. Google reads it with a smartphone: its documentation on mobile-first indexing explains that it uses the mobile version of pages for indexing and ranking.
In the sample, 3 sites out of 42 have no meta viewport. One still has an XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype and the title "index".
Three out of 42, so the problem is solved?
The viewport only says the site adapts to the screen, not that it's easy to use. Scovaventi's old shop had an unclear structure, a CMS that slowed it down and no thought for people buying from a phone: traffic yes, sales zero. What to check beyond the viewport is in our guide to mobile SEO.
2. It doesn't let people contact you (29% with no tappable phone number)
A local business website exists for one thing: to bring in a call, a message or an enquiry. 12 homepages out of 42 have no tel: link, meaning the number is there but has to be copied by hand. In 7 cases there isn't even a form or a WhatsApp button.
Now picture the scene: someone searching for an emergency plumber has water on the floor and a phone in their hand.
They'll call whoever lets them call with one tap.
The same goes for forms. With Contesini the work started precisely from the contact path: first a landing page that was easier to use on a phone, plus tracking, then the campaigns. If your site gets visits but the enquiries don't come, the full diagnosis is in our guide on why your website isn't generating leads.
3. It looks abandoned (copyright from 2015 and WordPress from 2017)
An abandoned website is one where nobody has updated the text, software or details for years. The quickest sign is the footer: 11 of the 23 sites showing a copyright year are stuck before 2025, three of them at 2015.
The year in the footer won't, on its own, cost you rankings on Google. But visitors read it the way you would: "nobody's been in here for years".
And they're often right.
Among the sites that declare their WordPress version, two are stuck at 4.9, released in November 2017, and 5.8, from July 2021. That isn't necessarily a security hole, but it shows nobody has touched the site in years. What Google looks at on security is explained in our guide to website security.
4. It's been hacked and nobody noticed (the worst case in the sample)
A hacked website is one where someone has added content without permission, by exploiting a vulnerability. Google classes it as hacked content in its spam policies.
The sample includes a dental practice whose homepage, downloaded on 9 October, opens with blocks of text positioned off-screen that link to Danish online casino sites. Patients don't see them. Google does.
But if the site looks normal, what harm does it do?
Three kinds, in order of severity: Google may show a warning in the results, it may apply a manual action, and meanwhile the site lends its reputation to whoever hacked it. The owner usually finds out late, when a patient mentions that "something odd comes up on Google".
Could your website have one of these flaws?
A hidden link, a phone number you can't tap or a conversion counted wrongly won't show up when you look at your homepage on a computer. We look for them in the code and in your Search Console data, and tell you what to fix before you think about rebuilding everything.
Book a strategy consultation5. It's slow (and speed is measured, not felt)
A slow website is one that misses the Core Web Vitals thresholds: according to web.dev, the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds (LCP), the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds (INP) and the layout shouldn't shift by more than 0.1 CLS.
How much is a tenth of a second worth? The Milliseconds Make Millions study by Deloitte and 55, commissioned by Google and summarised on web.dev, followed 37 European and American brand websites for 30 days in late 2019. With 0.1 seconds less across all speed metrics, retail conversions rose by 8.4%, and on lead generation sites the number of visitors reaching the form page rose by 21.6%. These are figures for big brands, not for a tradesperson: the direction is clear, the exact figure for your site isn't.
In our sample the heaviest homepage sends 794 KB of HTML alone, before images, fonts and scripts. It's a site built with a visual page builder.
You measure speed with PageSpeed Insights, using real-user data where it's available. How to read the result and where to start is in our guide on how to speed up a website.
6. Google can't tell what it's about (title, meta description, H1)
The title is the blue headline that appears in Google's results, the meta description the text underneath. In the sample 13 homepages out of 42 have no meta description and another 13 have a title over 65 characters, which gets cut off on a phone.
Then there are the extreme cases:
- a five-character title: "index";
- a site created with an AI website builder whose title, in the served HTML, is the builder's name, with the page language set to English;
- a homepage with ten H1s, meaning ten "main headings" on the same page.
Google's guidance on titles asks for descriptive, concise titles and warns against vague labels like "Home". When the title doesn't help, Google rewrites it: why that happens is in our guide on Google ignoring your meta title. The same goes for the description: Google uses the meta description if it describes the page well, otherwise it picks a snippet of text from the page itself (more in our guide to the meta description).
The last technical signal: 11 sites out of 42 have no structured data. For a local business, LocalBusiness schema gives Google the name, address, opening hours and phone number in a format it doesn't have to interpret.
7. Required information is missing (company details, privacy, cookies)
A business website has legal obligations that design guides rarely mention. In the UK, the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 (regulation 6) require a business to show its name, its geographic address and its contact details, including an email address, and its VAT number if it's VAT-registered. If you're a limited company, the Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015 add the registered number, the registered office address and the part of the UK where the company is registered, on the website.
Italy has a similar rule for the VAT number on the homepage, and in our sample it's missing on 3 homepages out of 42. Privacy fares worse: 8 sites out of 42 don't even contain the word "privacy", so there's no linked privacy notice and, in all likelihood, no cookie banner.
In the UK the reference for cookies is the ICO's guidance on PECR: you have to tell people which cookies you set and why, and get their consent, except for cookies that are strictly necessary for the service they've asked for. A site with no privacy notice and a contact form collects personal data without saying how it handles it. That isn't a design detail: it's a regulatory risk.
8. It isn't accessible (and the Equality Act already covers service providers)
An accessible website is one that people with low vision, screen reader users and keyboard-only users can all use. The WebAIM Million 2025 analysed the million most visited homepages in the world: 94.8% have detectable WCAG errors, 51 per page on average. The most common error is low-contrast text (79.1% of homepages), the second is images without alt text (55.5%).
In our Italian sample, images without alt text number 300 out of 810, or 37%.
But I'm a plumber, do I need to worry about this?
More than you might think. In the UK there's no small-business exemption to wait for: under section 29 of the Equality Act 2010, anyone providing a service to the public must not discriminate against disabled people, and the duty to make reasonable adjustments applies to every service provider. The Act doesn't mention websites by name, so how far it reaches online depends on the service you offer through the site. The European Accessibility Act, in force in the EU since 28 June 2025, doesn't apply in the UK, though it does apply if you sell online to customers in the EU. The details are in our guide to web accessibility.
9. It measures the wrong thing (the flaw no visitor sees)
A website can be easy to use, fast and compliant, and still be managed blind. That happens when tracking counts something as a "conversion" that isn't an enquiry.
When we took over the Google Ads account of Valore Solare, an Italian solar company, one month showed 15,267 conversions from 5,467 clicks. They were technical events on the site counted as quote requests. With those numbers, every decision on campaigns and pages was based on false data.
That's a bad website too, except the flaw is in the dashboard rather than on the page. Before judging a website by its results, check that the conversion rate measures real enquiries.
10. It doesn't say what you do, for whom and where (the flaw no tool finds)
The first screen of the homepage has to answer three questions: what you do, who for and in what area. None of the automated checks in the table measures this, and it's often what decides whether a visitor stays.
The most useful advice in the English-language guides is also the simplest: read your homepage as someone who has never heard of you. No slogans, no "end-to-end solutions". The service, the town and a way to get in touch.
With Bosatta, which sells motorcycle and scooter parts in four European markets, we followed users from product search to checkout to see where they dropped off, and made the path clearer on mobile. Together with separate campaigns for consumers and workshops, twelve months brought €240,000 in sales and 127 enquiries from dealers.
The point where design and SEO have to agree is covered in our guide to SXO.
Bad website: fix or rebuild? (the table that saves you a pointless quote)
Almost none of the ten signs requires a new website. Most can be fixed in hours or days on the site you already have.
| Flaw | Fix | Do you need a new website? |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number not tappable, no form | tel: link, WhatsApp button, short form | No |
| Title, meta description, H1 | Rewrite page by page | No |
| Old copyright year, dated text | Content update | No |
| Company details, privacy, cookies | Footer, privacy notice, compliant cookie banner | No |
| Alt text and contrast | Fix images and colours | Usually not |
| Hacked site | Clean-up, CMS update, reconsideration request | Only if the CMS can no longer be updated |
| Slow | Images, caching, hosting, plugins | If the problem is the theme or the CMS |
| Not built for phones | New theme or new website | Almost always yes |
| Wrong tracking | Redefine conversions in GA4 and Google Ads | No |
Scovaventi is the case where rebuilding was the right call: unclear structure, slow CMS, no thought for mobile. Contesini is the opposite: a new landing page was enough. Before you sign a quote, read our guide on how to tell whether your website really isn't converting; if you then decide to rebuild, read the one on redesigning without losing rankings.
The 5-minute check, from your phone
Pick up your smartphone, open your website as a customer would and note the points that fail.
- Tap the phone number on the homepage: the call should start.
- Read the first screen: can you tell what you do, who for and where, without scrolling?
- Look at the footer: company details (and VAT number if you're registered), a link to the privacy notice and a current copyright year.
- Search for your name on Google: is the blue headline clear, or is it "Home", "index" or the name of a piece of software?
- Run PageSpeed Insights on the homepage and see whether the Core Web Vitals are green.
- Open Search Console and go to Security issues: it should be empty.
- Compare real enquiries with recorded conversions for the last month: the numbers should be similar.
If two or more points fail, the site needs an audit before it needs a new design. For businesses that work on call-outs, such as plumbers and electricians, the priorities are in our guide to SEO for home services.
Bad website FAQs
It depends: a site that's slow, has unclear titles or can't be read on a smartphone starts at a disadvantage, but it doesn't get a penalty. Google takes action in the most serious cases, such as a hacked site full of spam. The most common harm is a different one: the site ranks, but the people who land on it don't call.
It depends: a site with a tappable phone number and the services and area clearly stated is useful even if the design is dated. A hacked site, one with no contact details, or one describing a business that no longer looks like yours does more harm than having nothing, because people searching for your name will find it anyway.
It depends: there's no fixed interval. It's worth rebuilding when the problem is structural, for example a site not built for phones or a CMS that can no longer be updated. Titles, contact details, text and legal requirements can be fixed on the existing site.
Yes. Under the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, a UK business website must show the business name, geographic address, contact details including an email address, and the VAT number if the business is VAT-registered. Limited companies must also show the registered number, registered office address and the part of the UK where they're registered. The footer is the usual place, so it appears on every page.
No. The tool doesn't decide the quality of the site. What matters is what reaches Google and the visitor: in our test, one site created with an AI builder had the name of the software as its title, while the other builder-made sites in the sample didn't have this problem. Check the title, language and contact details after publishing.
Yes. All you need is your phone, PageSpeed Insights and Search Console: try calling from the homepage, read the first screen, check the footer, the title and the speed. If two or more checks fail, an audit makes more sense than asking for a quote for a new website.
Bad website, in short
A bad website doesn't make clear what you do, doesn't build trust and can't be used to contact you from a phone.
In our test, 12 homepages out of 42 have no tappable phone number and 13 have no meta description.
Almost half the sites that show a copyright year are stuck before 2025.
The worst case is invisible: a homepage with hidden links to online casinos.
Almost everything can be fixed on the site you have; you rebuild when the flaw is in the CMS or on mobile.
One thing the industry rarely says: the first address to check isn't your website, it's the link that leads to it. In the "Related websites" box that Google Italy showed above the results for "idraulico bologna" (plumber Bologna), one of the nine sites led to an empty hosting page, saying there was no website there yet. Before arguing about design, open the links to your site that you've scattered around the web one by one, from your Google Business Profile to the directories, and check that they lead to a live page. If you'd like to do it together, starting from the data, see how we work on SEO.
