Where Are Local Businesses Most Likely to Have No Website Listed? 25 City-Industry Markets Compared
Website-listing gaps vary not only by industry and not only by city. The largest differences appear when the two are combined.
ProspectGrid compared 25 city-industry combinations across five U.S. cities and five local-service categories. The result is a more specific view of where businesses in our dataset were most likely to have no website listed in Google Places.
Quick answer: Philadelphia auto repair had the largest website gap among the 25 city-industry combinations studied at 55.8%, followed by Houston auto repair at 50.9% and Chicago auto repair at 46.9%. Phoenix plumbers had the smallest measured gap at 19.3%.
The 10 largest website gaps
Four of the five largest combinations were auto-repair markets, showing how strongly category can shape the result.
Share of businesses with no website listed, top 10 city-industry combinations:
Important: “no website listed” means the Website field in the collected Google Places data was empty. It does not prove that the business has no website anywhere on the web.
All 25 city-industry combinations
The table below sorts every measured combination from the largest website gap to the smallest.
| Order | City | Category | Website gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Philadelphia | Auto repair | 55.8% |
| 2 | Houston | Auto repair | 50.9% |
| 3 | Chicago | Auto repair | 46.9% |
| 4 | Phoenix | Auto repair | 39.4% |
| 5 | Philadelphia | Plumbers | 38.5% |
| 6 | Chicago | HVAC | 37.7% |
| 7 | Philadelphia | Electricians | 35.9% |
| 8 | Charlotte | Auto repair | 34.7% |
| 9 | Phoenix | Electricians | 34.3% |
| 10 | Philadelphia | HVAC | 34.1% |
| 11 | Philadelphia | Roofing | 33.2% |
| 12 | Houston | Electricians | 31.6% |
| 13 | Charlotte | Electricians | 31.6% |
| 14 | Chicago | Electricians | 30.9% |
| 15 | Chicago | Plumbers | 29.5% |
| 16 | Houston | HVAC | 29.0% |
| 17 | Charlotte | HVAC | 28.1% |
| 18 | Chicago | Roofing | 27.6% |
| 19 | Phoenix | HVAC | 26.1% |
| 20 | Houston | Plumbers | 26.0% |
| 21 | Charlotte | Plumbers | 25.9% |
| 22 | Charlotte | Roofing | 22.4% |
| 23 | Phoenix | Roofing | 21.5% |
| 24 | Houston | Roofing | 20.9% |
| 25 | Phoenix | Plumbers | 19.3% |
Houston and Charlotte electricians both measured 31.6%; their adjacent positions in the sorted table should not be interpreted as a meaningful difference between those two markets.
Key findings
- Auto repair dominates the top of the table. The four largest measured combinations were Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, and Phoenix auto repair.
- Philadelphia appears throughout the upper end of the comparison. All five Philadelphia categories were in the top 11 positions.
- The same industry can look very different by city. Auto repair ranged from 34.7% in Charlotte to 55.8% in Philadelphia.
- Plumbing showed an especially large geographic spread. Philadelphia measured 38.5%, while Phoenix measured 19.3%.
- Electricians had the smallest city-to-city range. The five city values ranged from 30.9% to 35.9%, a spread of 5.0 percentage points.
Related research: Which U.S. Cities Have the Largest Local Business Website Gap? → and Which Local Business Industries Have the Most Businesses With No Website Listed? →
Auto repair: high gaps across all five cities
Auto repair was the strongest recurring pattern in the 25-market comparison. Four auto-repair markets occupied the first four positions, and Charlotte auto repair still appeared eighth at 34.7%.
The category ranged from 34.7% in Charlotte to 55.8% in Philadelphia, a spread of 21.1 percentage points.
That does not mean auto repair is automatically the best prospecting niche. It means missing website listings were especially common in the auto-repair records collected for these five cities.
Plumbing: one of the largest city-to-city differences
Plumbing showed another wide geographic spread. Philadelphia plumbers had a 38.5% website gap, compared with 29.5% in Chicago, 26.0% in Houston, 25.9% in Charlotte, and 19.3% in Phoenix.
The difference between Philadelphia and Phoenix was 19.2 percentage points.
This is a clear example of why an industry-wide average can hide useful local variation.
Electricians: the smallest city-to-city range in the comparison
Electrician website-gap percentages were much more tightly grouped:
- Philadelphia: 35.9%
- Phoenix: 34.3%
- Houston: 31.6%
- Charlotte: 31.6%
- Chicago: 30.9%
The difference between the highest and lowest electrician markets was only 5.0 percentage points, the smallest spread among the five categories studied.
HVAC and roofing also vary meaningfully by market
HVAC ranged from 26.1% in Phoenix to 37.7% in Chicago, a spread of 11.6 percentage points.
Roofing ranged from 20.9% in Houston to 33.2% in Philadelphia, a spread of 12.3 percentage points.
These differences reinforce the same pattern: the useful unit for prospecting is often not the city or industry alone, but the combination of both.
Why city-industry combinations are more useful than a single ranking
A city-level average answers one question: how did the same five categories compare when each category was weighted equally?
An industry-level average answers another: how common was a missing website listing across that category’s records?
But someone building a local prospect list usually searches for a specific business type in a specific place. That makes the city-industry combination closer to the actual prospecting decision.
A web designer choosing between plumbers in Philadelphia and plumbers in Phoenix, for example, is dealing with two very different measured website-gap rates: 38.5% versus 19.3%.
This is still not a measure of sales potential. Website-gap percentage is one prospecting signal. It does not measure revenue, marketing budget, urgency, customer value, willingness to buy, or the quality of any individual lead.
How to use the comparison for lead generation
The table is most useful as a starting point for deciding which markets to test.
- Choose a category that fits your offer.
- Compare the category across several cities.
- Build a candidate list in one or two markets.
- Verify website and contact information.
- Qualify the businesses before outreach.
- Compare real campaign outcomes rather than relying on website-gap percentage alone.
See the ProspectGrid guide to qualifying local business leads →
See how to choose a local business niche for lead generation →
Methodology
ProspectGrid collected Google Places data on October 2–3, 2026 across five U.S. cities: Charlotte, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and Phoenix.
Five local-service categories were included: auto repair shops, electricians, HVAC contractors, plumbers, and roofing contractors. This produced 25 city-category datasets.
Businesses were deduplicated by Google CID within each city-category dataset. Across the full research collection, the study contained 43,914 category-level records and 42,985 unique businesses after global CID deduplication.
A record was classified as “no website listed” when its Google Places Website field was empty. The percentage for each city-industry combination is the share of records in that specific dataset with an empty Website field.
The combinations in this article are sorted by those category-level percentages. Equal or near-equal percentages should not be treated as evidence of a meaningful underlying difference without further analysis.
Limitations
This comparison covers only five cities and five local-service categories. It should not be interpreted as a ranking of every U.S. market or industry.
The study measures website-listing status in the collected Google Places data, not whether a business definitively has no website. A business may have an independent site that was not connected to its Google listing.
The data also does not measure lead quality, revenue, conversion probability, marketing budgets, or willingness to purchase a service.
FAQ
Which city-industry combination had the largest website gap?
Among the 25 combinations studied, Philadelphia auto repair had the largest measured website gap at 55.8%.
Which combination had the smallest website gap?
Phoenix plumbers had the smallest measured gap in this comparison at 19.3%.
Which category varied the most by city?
Auto repair had the largest spread, ranging from 34.7% in Charlotte to 55.8% in Philadelphia — a difference of 21.1 percentage points. Plumbing was close behind with a 19.2-point spread.
Which category had the smallest city-to-city range?
Electricians had the smallest city-to-city range among the five categories studied, from 30.9% in Chicago to 35.9% in Philadelphia — a spread of 5.0 percentage points.
Does a larger website gap mean a better market for sales?
Not necessarily. It may indicate a larger pool of businesses with no website listed, but qualification still needs to account for business activity, contactability, customer economics, competition, and fit with your offer.
Does “no website listed” mean the business has no website?
No. It means the Website field in the collected Google Places record was empty. The business may still have a website elsewhere.
Conclusion
Looking at city and industry together reveals patterns that disappear in broader averages.
Auto repair occupied the top of the 25-market comparison, Philadelphia appeared repeatedly among the higher-gap markets, plumbing varied sharply by geography, and electricians had the smallest city-to-city range among the five categories studied.
For prospecting, that makes the city-industry combination a useful starting point — but not a substitute for qualification. The strongest market is ultimately the one that produces the best real prospects and sales outcomes for your offer.
Test specific city-and-category markets with ProspectGrid
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Sources and related research
- ProspectGrid — The Local Business Website Gap: 42,985 Businesses Across Five U.S. Cities
- ProspectGrid — Which U.S. Cities Have the Largest Local Business Website Gap?
- ProspectGrid — Which Local Business Industries Have the Most Businesses With No Website Listed?
- ProspectGrid — Best Local Business Niches for Lead Generation in 2026
- ProspectGrid — How to Qualify Local Business Leads from Google Maps in 2026