TrailBlaze Score Methodology
The TrailBlaze Score rates a local Utah business from 0 to 100, based on public information about it that you would otherwise have to hunt down yourself. It is built to be honest, explainable, and independent. No payment, plan or membership can change a score. This page explains exactly how it works, what we use, and what we never use.
Current version: v2.1.
What the Score Measures
Someone choosing a local business wants to know three things: can I trust them, do real customers back that up, and can I actually reach them?
Trustworthy means the information about the business is accurate and consistent. Their contact details check out, and their online presence looks like a real, working business.
Reputable means real customers have used them and said so publicly. Rating, number of reviews, and how recent those reviews are all count.
Reachable means you can find them, understand what they do, and get in touch without a fight — a complete Google profile and a website that works on a phone.
What the Score Does Not Measure
We do not measure the quality of the work itself, what a job will cost, or whether a business is licensed and insured. None of those can be checked fairly at scale from public data today. Ask for proof of license and insurance before you hire anyone, and get more than one quote.
What We Use — and What Never Counts
The score uses only independent, public information about the business: what Google shows, what their own website does, and whether their contact details match.
Nothing on TrailBlaze's own platform counts. Specifically, none of these can change a score:
- whether a business is a TrailBlaze member, has claimed its listing, or pays for any plan
- how complete a business's TrailBlaze listing is
- how fast TrailBlaze's own page for them loads
- how much traffic or engagement a business gets on TrailBlaze
A business that has never heard of TrailBlaze can earn exactly the same score as one of our members.
Six Components
Every score is built from up to six components.
Reviews
What real customers say on Google: average rating, how many reviews, and a small recency bonus. Google shares only a sample of 5 reviews per business (its "most relevant," not its newest), so an old sample is weak evidence and never lowers a score below neutral — a recent review in the sample earns full credit, a review from the past year earns partial credit, and anything older is treated as unknown. Whether the owner replies to reviews is not measured, because Google does not provide that data to us.
Google Search Position
Where Google itself lists the business when someone searches for its category in its city — for example "dance studio in Payson, Utah" — among the top 20 results Google returns. Most people choose from the first few businesses Google shows, so this is what customers actually see. #1 scores highest, sliding down through the top 20; a business that was searched for but not among Google's results scores low but not zero. It is a snapshot: Google's order changes with time, wording, and where the searcher is, and a business serving a neighboring city may be listed under that city. It comes from Google's search, not from anything a business pays TrailBlaze for. Where we haven't run the search, this doesn't count.
Google Profile & Contact Details
Whether the business's public Google profile is complete — business categories set, hours listed, phone number listed, website listed, and photos (full credit at 10 or more) — and whether the phone number and address on Google match what the business publishes on its own website. If Google and the business's own site show different numbers or addresses, you can't be sure which one reaches them. Only details we can actually compare count; a site that doesn't print its number is not marked as a mismatch. Nothing here uses TrailBlaze's own record of the business. A business Google lists as permanently closed is not scored.
Website
About the business's own website only: whether it works on a phone, how fast Google's PageSpeed test rates it, whether it uses a secure connection (HTTPS), and whether it publishes a phone number and address. A business with no website is simply not scored on this component — it is not penalized.
Social Pages
The social pages (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and similar) that the business links from its own website. A link shows the business runs that page; it does not show how active the page is — we don't measure how recently a business posts. Credit rises with the number of platforms linked and stops after three, so a business with a strong site and one or two channels isn't marked far below one on every network. Only measured when we could read the business's website.
AI & Search Readiness
Whether the business's own website is built so search engines and AI assistants can read who it is and where it works: structured business details in the site's code (name, phone, address), links from that code to its other profiles, opening hours and location in that code, and a robots.txt that doesn't shut AI crawlers out of the whole site. This measures how the site is built. It does not claim an AI assistant will recommend the business — nobody can promise that. Whether assistants actually name a business is a separate question we may show for information, but it is never part of the score.
Weights
Each component has a weight. When a component was not measured for a business, it is left out and the remaining weights are scaled up so they still add to 100 — a business is never marked down for something we haven't checked.
Every business in every category is scored the same way, so scores are consistent and comparable: Reviews 30 · Google Search Position 20 · Google Profile & Contact Details 25 · Website 15 · Social Pages 5 · AI & Search Readiness 5.
The score leans heavily on what Google shows customers — reviews, search position, and the Google profile with its contact details (75%) — with the rest from the business's own website and how it's set up for search and AI. Google is the biggest source, but not the only one.
How the Score Is Calculated
The score is the weighted average of the components that were measured. It is calculated by a deterministic function: the same information always produces the same result. There is no randomness, no manual adjustment, and no human override.
Enough data to score fairly. A business gets a public score and tier only when its reviews were measured and at least two other components were too. Otherwise the page says "Not enough data yet." That is not a low score — it means we haven't collected enough public information to be fair. Every page shows how many of the six checks were measured.
Tiers
| Tier | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Verified | 80 to 100 | Strong reputation, complete profile, and easy to reach |
| Rising | 60 to 79 | Good reputation and presence, with clear ways to improve |
| Building | Below 60 | Gaps that make this business harder to find and trust |
Top Rated badges
A "Top Rated" badge goes to the top three businesses in a city and category, ranked by score — and only businesses in the Verified or Rising tiers can earn one. A business cannot be "Top Rated" just for being the best of a weak group, and no business can pay for a badge.
Where the Data Comes From
| Component | Source |
|---|---|
| Reviews | Google (rating, review count, review dates) |
| Google Search Position | Google Places API (text search) |
| Google Profile & Contact Details | Google Places API, compared with the business's own website |
| Website | Google PageSpeed Insights, plus a direct look at the business's own website |
| Social Pages | Links published on the business's own website |
| AI & Search Readiness | The business's own website (structured data) and its robots.txt |
Some star ratings and review counts already in our directory were first collected through a third-party data provider when a business was added. They are refreshed through Google's official Places API whenever a business is re-checked. We store derived facts and Google's place ID — not Google's review text or photos beyond what is shown as a short summary.
How We Handle Missing Data
Some information can't be gathered honestly yet, and some businesses simply haven't been re-checked recently. When something wasn't measured, it does not count at all — neither for nor against the business. A gap in our data is never treated as a problem with the business.
How Often Scores Update
A score reflects the last time we checked a business's public information, and every page shows when that was. We re-check businesses in batches; we are not yet on a fixed schedule. If a source is unavailable when we check, we keep the last valid result and its date rather than guessing.
Score Independence
Payment, subscription plan, membership, claim status, and billing information never influence a TrailBlaze Score or a ranking.
A business's score is identical whether it is unclaimed, on the free plan, or on our most expensive plan. Upgrading a plan can unlock tools for capturing leads and keeping customers. It does not raise a score, improve a rank, or earn a badge.
This is enforced in the code. The scoring function never receives payment, plan, membership, claim, or billing data — and never receives anything measured on TrailBlaze's own platform. An automated test fails if any such field is added to its input. The test runs on every code change.
Some paid plans include richer reporting on a score — more detail, or checks run more often. Reporting never changes the score; it only shows the same independent calculation in more depth.
Our customer loyalty discounts affect what a member pays us. They have no connection to any score or ranking.
No business can pay to rank higher. No business can pay to lower a competitor's ranking.
Improving Your Score
If you own a business, we can show you exactly what would raise your score: a missing phone number on Google, no business hours, a slow website, contact details that don't match. Every item is a real change you can make yourself, and none of it can be bought. TrailBlaze also sells services that help businesses build a stronger online presence — but buying them does not change a score. Only the real-world improvements do.
If Something Is Wrong
If you believe a fact behind a score is wrong, tell us through our Contact page. We will re-check that source, and if the underlying information is wrong we correct it and re-score. Scores are never adjusted by hand — a score changes only when the facts change.
Methodology Versions
Each score is tagged with the version that produced it.
v2.1 (September 2026). Added Google Search Position, folded contact accuracy into the Google profile (now Google's phone/address vs the business's own website, not TrailBlaze's record), and moved to a single weighting for every category (the earlier electrician-specific weights were removed so all businesses are scored the same way). Structured business data moved from Website into AI & Search Readiness so it isn't counted twice.
v2.0 (September 2026). Removed everything that measured TrailBlaze's own platform — site engagement, the completeness of a TrailBlaze listing, and the speed of TrailBlaze's own page — so that businesses that aren't members can score as well as members. Components that were not measured now drop out instead of counting as a placeholder, and a business needs enough measured checks to receive a public tier. A business whose Google profile lists it as permanently closed is no longer scored.
v1.x. The earlier score, in which about 40–55% came from TrailBlaze's own platform. Replaced by v2.0.
This page is generated from METHODOLOGY.md in the TrailBlaze codebase. Last reviewed: 2026-09-25.