We checked 2,417 small-business websites in Atlantic Canada. One in seven didn't work.

What we checked

We took every local business in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador that lists a website on OpenStreetMap, and left out chains, government, schools and churches. That left 2,417 websites: 662 in New Brunswick, 1,176 in Nova Scotia, 189 in PEI and 390 in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Each home page was visited once, politely. Every site that looked broken was opened again in a real browser, because firewalls sometimes block automated visits and a site that is fine for people must not be counted as broken. The numbers below are what a visitor saw on September 29 and 30, 2026.

One in seven didn’t work at all

361 websites (15%) showed a customer nothing useful. For 198 of them (8%) the address no longer existed at all: the domain had expired or the hosting was gone. 37 showed a parking page, a “for sale” notice or someone else’s content; four of those now redirect to online casino spam. The rest answered with an error page or an almost empty page.

The link to these sites still sits on Google Maps, in directories and on printed menus and trucks, so customers keep clicking it. Nothing warns an owner when a domain lapses or a hosting account closes, so a site can stay broken for months.

Smaller things that still cost customers

Among the websites that did work:

• 46% showed a phone number that you can’t tap to call on a phone;
• 26% gave Google no description to show under their name;
• 6% still said © 2021 or earlier in the footer;
• 4.6% made Chrome show “Not secure” next to the address;
• 3.7% were not built for phones at all, so the page shows tiny and people have to zoom.

None of these is hard to fix, and most take less than an hour.

By province

• New Brunswick: 121 of 662 not working (18%).
• Nova Scotia: 153 of 1,176 (13%).
• Prince Edward Island: 23 of 189 (12%).
• Newfoundland and Labrador: 64 of 390 (16%).

Check your own site in two minutes

Open your website on your phone, from a search on Google Maps, the way a customer does. Does it open? Does the address bar say “Not secure”? Can you read it without zooming, and can you tap your phone number to call?

Put your domain on auto-renew with a card that won’t expire, and look at the year in your footer. For an instant grade, use our free website report card below.

How we did it

Python for the checks, Playwright and Chromium for the real-browser pass and the screenshots, and DNS lookups for domains that no longer exist. One request per site, no forms filled, nothing stored beyond the result. We publish totals only: no business is named.

Business data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Also published by Marvin Palencia at marvin.demarkstudio.ca.