Sandbanks DigitalThe Dorset Website Health Index
We measured 429 Dorset business websites. The average scores 77/100 for web health — but just 23% pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile.
Dorset (BH and DT postcode areas) · captured 2026-06 · research by Elliot, Sandbanks Digital · free and open data · methodology · cite this report
How healthy is the average business website?
The Web Health Index scores every site from 0–100 by combining mobile performance, accessibility, SEO and answer-engine readiness. Across 429 Dorset business websites the average is 77/100 (median 78). Most sites look fine — the problems hide in how they perform.
Average Web Health Index (out of 100)
Pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile
Median mobile load (largest content paint)
Median homepage weight
Average mobile performance score
Average desktop performance score
Average accessibility score
Average SEO score
How many websites pass Google's Core Web Vitals?
Fine on a laptop, slow on a phone. Google judges sites on Core Web Vitals — and it judges them on mobile. Just 23% of Dorset business websites pass on mobile, even though they average 83/100 on desktop. The median site takes 7.4s to show its main content on a phone, against 1.4s on desktop.
Average performance score
Sites with a fast main paint (LCP under 2.5s)
Which Dorset industries are winning online?
Average scores by sector. Trades & Construction leads; Retail & Shops trails. Higher is better for every column.
| Industry | Sites | Health | Mobile | Desktop | CWV pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trades & Constructionbest | 48 | 81 | 69 | 84 | 19% |
| Education & Childcare | 6 | 80 | 62 | 79 | 33% |
| Leisure & Fitness | 46 | 78 | 63 | 80 | 28% |
| Other | 48 | 78 | 67 | 82 | 13% |
| Professional Services | 48 | 78 | 70 | 87 | 27% |
| Automotive | 45 | 77 | 64 | 86 | 16% |
| Health & Beauty | 44 | 77 | 67 | 85 | 18% |
| Property | 48 | 77 | 67 | 84 | 19% |
| Hospitality & Food | 45 | 76 | 65 | 83 | 36% |
| Retail & Shopsweakest | 43 | 75 | 63 | 80 | 28% |
| Pets & Animals | 8 | 74 | 61 | 79 | 50% |
CWV pass = share passing Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile. Sectors with small samples are shown for completeness; best/weakest highlights use industries with 20+ sites.
Does it vary across Dorset?
A little. The Bournemouth–Poole conurbation (BH) edges ahead of the more rural west (DT) on every measure — but both leave most of the gains on the table.
Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch
BH300 sites measured
Dorchester, Weymouth & wider Dorset
DT129 sites measured
The numbers worth quoting
Only 23% of Dorset business websites pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile — 77% fall short of the bar Google sets for a fast, stable mobile experience.
The median Dorset business website takes 7.4 seconds to show its main content on a phone — roughly 3.0× Google's 2.5-second "good" threshold.
Dorset websites score an average of 66/100 for mobile performance but 83/100 on desktop — a 17-point gap that punishes the phone users who make up most local searches.
The median Dorset business homepage weighs 2.2 MB — heavy enough to stall on a mobile connection.
Across 429 sites, the average Web Health Index is 77/100: most Dorset businesses have a decent-looking site that is quietly slow where it counts.
Trades & Construction has the healthiest websites in Dorset (avg 81/100); Retail & Shops the weakest (avg 75/100).
It is achievable in Dorset
We don't name and shame — but these benchmarks all come from real businesses in the sample. The bar is reachable on the same budgets and platforms everyone else is using.
Top Web Health Index recorded in the sample
of 429 sites scored 90+ for web health
Fastest mobile paint — 12× quicker than the median
sites already pass Core Web Vitals on mobile
Website load time and Core Web Vitals: common questions
What is the average website load time?
In our 2026 study of 429 Dorset business websites, the median site took 7.4 seconds to show its main content on a phone (largest contentful paint), against 1.4 seconds on desktop. Google's "good" threshold is 2.5 seconds, so the typical site is roughly 3 times slower than the target on mobile.
What percentage of websites pass Google's Core Web Vitals?
Only 23% of the 429 business websites we measured pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile, which means 77% fall short of the bar Google uses as a ranking signal.
What is a good Core Web Vitals score?
Google rates Core Web Vitals as "good" when Largest Contentful Paint is under 2.5 seconds, Cumulative Layout Shift is under 0.1, and Interaction to Next Paint is under 200 milliseconds, measured on real mobile visits at the 75th percentile. In our sample only 23% of sites clear all three on mobile.
Do Core Web Vitals affect SEO?
Yes. Core Web Vitals are part of Google's page-experience signals and feed into mobile rankings, so a slow site can be out-ranked by a faster competitor with similar content. In our study 77% of business websites sat below Google's mobile pass mark.
How fast should a website load on mobile?
Aim for your main content to appear within 2.5 seconds on a mobile connection, which is Google's "good" LCP threshold. For context, the median business website in our 429-site study took 7.4 seconds, about 3 times slower than the target.
Why is my website fast on desktop but slow on mobile?
Phones have less processing power and slower connections, so a heavy page that feels instant on a laptop can stall on mobile. In our sample, sites averaged 83/100 on desktop but only 66/100 on mobile, with a median homepage weight of 2.2 MB. Google grades sites on the mobile experience.
How we measured it
- Sample
- 429 live business websites across Dorset (BH and DT postcode areas). Live business websites held in the Sandbanks Digital lead database, drawn from across Dorset and balanced across industries.
- Areas
- BH (Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch) and DT (Dorchester, Weymouth and wider Dorset) postcode areas.
- How each site was measured
- Each homepage was run through Google PageSpeed Insights (Lighthouse) on both an emulated mobile device and desktop, capturing Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO, the Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP and CLS) and total page weight, then merged with our in-house SEO/AEO scan into a single 0–100 Web Health Index.
- How we judge Core Web Vitals
- For the Core Web Vitals pass/fail we use Google's own assessment: where a site has enough real-user traffic we take the field (CrUX) verdict across LCP, INP and CLS at the 75th percentile — the same data Google uses as a ranking signal. Where a site has too little traffic for field data, we fall back to the lab thresholds (LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, and Total Blocking Time under 200ms as a stand-in for INP). "Largest content paint" figures quoted elsewhere are the mobile lab LCP.
- The Web Health Index
- The Web Health Index is a weighted composite of mobile Lighthouse Performance (35%), SEO (25%), Accessibility (20%) and Answer-Engine Optimisation (20%), normalised across whichever metrics are available for a site. Sites are banded good (75–100), amber (50–74) or poor (below 50).
- What we excluded
- 23 sites could not be measured — server errors, blank renders, or pages that blocked automated capture — and are excluded from every figure above.
- Captured
- 2026 Q2 (data collected 2026-06).
- Anonymisation
- This report publishes aggregates only. No individual business is named or singled out for a poor-performing site. Named examples, where shown, are positive standouts included with permission.
Use the data
This research is free to cite and share under CC BY 4.0. Please credit Sandbanks Digital and link back to this page.
Dorset Website Health Index 2026 Q2, Sandbanks Digital. https://sandbanksdigital.com/research/dorset-website-health-index
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<p>Source: <a href="https://sandbanksdigital.com/research/dorset-website-health-index">Dorset Website Health Index 2026 Q2, Sandbanks Digital</a>.</p>