How the AdIQ grader scores your business
Plain English. No marketing speak. Here is exactly what we measure, where each number comes from, and how we turn it into a letter grade.
The letter grade scale (AdIQ's opinion)
Every AdIQ-issued grade uses this scale. Same scale for the overall grade, every sub-grade, and every AI ASO category. We never publish AdIQ's underlying numeric score, only the letter.
| Letter | Band | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | Winning | Reserved for AdIQ customers. Awarded only on parts of your visibility that AdIQ already manages and that meet our managed-quality bar (see "How AdIQ customers earn A+" below). A+ is never given out from a numeric score alone. |
| A | Strong | You are operating at or above the bar we see from strong local businesses in your category. |
| B | Good | Most of the right signals are in place. Room to tighten specific gaps. |
| C | Fair | Mixed picture. Some categories strong, others meaningfully behind. |
| D | Needs Work | Material gaps. Several specific things to fix before competing on local search. |
| F | Major Gaps | Foundational issues. The basics aren't in place yet. |
How AdIQ customers earn A+ (added 2026-06-25)
If you run the grader on a business AdIQ already serves, the report can show A+ on the parts of your visibility we manage. This is the only way A+ is given. It is never derived from a numeric band, and a non-customer can never see it.
A+ is awarded on a category only when that category's real signal is met:
- Website: A+ only when AdIQ hosts your live site (an active custom domain attached to your account, or a site we built and host for you).
- Rankings: A+ only when your tracked target keywords are already landing for you. Our standard is the 90-day get-found guarantee bar: ranking on Google or being cited by AI assistants for at least 2 of your target keywords. If you do not have an active rankings program with us, this category is left at its normal grade. It is never penalized for being a customer.
- Google Business Profile: A+ only when your profile is fully built out and verified to our managed-quality bar.
If any managed category does not yet meet its bar, that category keeps its real, honestly computed grade. We never blanket-A+ a customer. When at least one category earns A+, your overall grade is lifted to reflect the parts you are already winning, and the report shifts from "here is what to fix" to "you are winning here, let us win these next" using your real list of target keywords we are still working to land.
What we measure
Google Business Profile (sub-grade)
What we pull (factual): Star rating, total review count, profile photo count, whether a phone is on the profile, whether a website is linked, address completeness. All of this comes from Google's public Place Details API. We display the raw numbers as facts, attributed to Google.
How we grade (subjective): We blend those factual inputs into a letter grade by comparing your photo count to a 25-photo soft target, your review count to 50, your rating to 4.5★, plus phone and website presence. The blend is AdIQ's opinion. Your letter grade does not come from Google.
Website performance (sub-grade)
What we pull (factual): Mobile + desktop performance scores, accessibility score, SEO score, and best-practices score. Each runs through Google's Lighthouse engine in a real Chrome browser. We display these numbers exactly as Google returns them ("Mobile 38/100 per Google").
How we grade (subjective): The website sub-grade blends Lighthouse mobile + desktop scores plus our own on-page SEO crawl (see next criterion). The blend is AdIQ's opinion. Lighthouse scores themselves are Google's.
What we don't measure: We don't run Lighthouse with custom throttling. We don't simulate a logged-in session. We don't crawl beyond the homepage URL you provided.
On-page SEO (sub-grade)
What we check (factual): HTTPS enabled, page title length, meta description length, single H1 tag, schema.org LocalBusiness JSON-LD present, schema.org Service / FAQ / AggregateRating present, mobile viewport meta tag, canonical URL declared, Open Graph tags, robots.txt accessible, sitemap.xml accessible. Each is a yes/no pass/fail. We display each as a factual chip on the audit screen.
How we grade (subjective): We weight the checks into a 0-100 internal number and convert to a letter using the scale above. The blend is AdIQ's opinion.
How we identify our crawler: Standard GET request, no JavaScript execution. If you want to identify or block us, watch for our user agent. We respect robots.txt for any subpage we touch (in v1 we only touch the homepage URL you submit).
Reputation (sub-grade)
What we pull (factual): Star rating, total review count, and the recency of the latest review (from Google's public review feed). We surface these as facts, attributed to Google.
How we grade (subjective): We blend rating, count, and how often AI search engines cite you (see next criterion). The blend is AdIQ's opinion.
AI Search Optimization — "ASO" (sub-grade)
What this is: ASO is AdIQ's own scoring lens. It rates how well-positioned your site is to be cited by AI search engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) when someone asks about your category in your city. It is not a standard industry term; it is our naming.
What we measure:
- Structured data — schema.org markup present on your homepage (LocalBusiness, Service, FAQ, AggregateRating)
- Content structure — H1 tags, meta description length, word count, multi-section page layout
- Citation signals — review density, NAP completeness (name / address / phone match), AI engines already citing you
- Technical — HTTPS, mobile viewport, canonical, sitemap, robots.txt
- Speed + accessibility — Lighthouse mobile speed + accessibility scores from Google
Each category gets a letter grade, then we blend them into a headline ASO letter grade.
AI search visibility (factual count)
What we do: We send the same 3 search-intent questions to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. The questions are vertical-aware (e.g. "best 24/7 emergency plumber in Newport Beach" for a plumber). We parse each AI's response and check whether your business is cited.
What we report (factual): "X of 12 answers mentioned you" — the count of citations across 4 platforms × 3 questions = 12 total queries. Not a grade. A count.
What we don't do: We do not score the AI platforms themselves. We do not score any business other than yours. If a competitor was mentioned instead of you, we record that internally for our analytics but do not display competitor mentions on a per-competitor basis.
Trust + Security (sub-grade)
What we check (factual): Six signals. (1) Does the homepage load over HTTPS with a valid certificate, and does plain HTTP redirect to HTTPS? (2) Are the five standard browser security headers present (Strict-Transport-Security, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Content-Security-Policy, Referrer-Policy)? (3) Is an SPF record published in DNS? (4) Is a DMARC record published at _dmarc.<domain>? (5) When was the domain registered (RDAP lookup, the modern WHOIS replacement)? (6) Has the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine ever crawled this domain?
How we grade (subjective): Each signal contributes a small weighted score to a 0-100 internal number; we convert to a letter using the scale above. Strong sites (valid HTTPS + all 5 headers + SPF + DMARC + 5+ year old domain + Wayback indexed) earn an A. Sites missing several earn C, D, or F. The composite is AdIQ's opinion; the individual signals are facts.
What we don't measure: We don't check DKIM (requires knowing the email selector, which isn't visible from outside). We don't run a full TLS-cipher audit (Strict-Transport-Security presence is a baseline only). We don't crawl beyond the homepage. We don't penalize for missing security headers on a CDN-fronted site that sets them at the CDN layer if those headers reach the browser.
Competitors within 5 miles (factual list)
What we do: We use Google's Nearby Search API to find the 5 closest businesses to you in the same primary category, within a 5-mile radius. We display their public Google Business Profile data: rating, review count, photo count.
What we do not do: We do not grade competitors. We do not characterize competitors with AdIQ-generated prose. We do not make subjective claims about whether a competitor is doing well or poorly. We surface their public stats and let you compare yourself.
What we don't measure
- Anything behind a login wall, we never authenticate to scrape data.
- Subpages or service-area pages, v1 only crawls the homepage URL you submit.
- Social media follower counts, post engagement, ad spend, or any paid-channel data.
- Conversion rate, lead volume, revenue, or any internal business metric.
- Reputation outside Google, we don't pull Yelp, BBB, Facebook reviews, etc. in v1.
Data freshness
Each audit caches third-party fetches for 24 hours so we don't hammer external APIs. The "Analyzed" timestamp on your results page tells you when the data was pulled. If your business has changed materially since then (new reviews, redesigned site, etc.), re-run the grader for a fresh look.
How to request a correction or removal
If anything we report is wrong, or you want your business removed from our audit log entirely, use the Request a correction link on any results page, or email our contact form. We respond within 2 business days. Removal requests fully delete the audit log record for your URL.
Non-affiliation notice
AdIQ is independent. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, or any platform or business mentioned in a grade. We use these companies' public APIs under their terms of service to surface factual data.
Legal disclaimer + your rights
Marketing tool, not certified audit. The AdIQ Grader is a free promotional resource for prospective customers of AdIQ. It is not a certified audit, professional consulting engagement, or substitute for a paid SEO or marketing review. Letter grades reflect AdIQ's subjective opinion based on the limited public signals listed above.
No guarantee of search performance or business outcome. Improving any factor we measure does not guarantee higher search rankings, more leads, more revenue, or any specific business result. Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and the other platforms we reference are independent companies that change their algorithms continuously. Search visibility depends on many factors outside AdIQ's measurement window.
Third-party data accuracy. Numbers attributed to a third party (Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Business Profile, Yelp, AI search engines) reflect what that third party returned at the moment we queried. Those numbers may be stale, incomplete, cached, or inaccurate due to the third party's own data quality. AdIQ does not warrant the accuracy of any third-party data.
AI-generated action items. "Recommended next steps" and other AI-generated suggestions on the results page are produced by large language models (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI). They are general suggestions, not professional advice tailored to your specific business, legal, or financial situation. Do not rely on them as a substitute for advice from a qualified marketing, legal, or financial professional.
"AS IS" basis. The Grader is provided AS IS without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including without limitation warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. Your use of the Grader is at your own risk.
Limitation of liability. To the maximum extent permitted by law, AdIQ, its officers, employees, agents, and affiliates shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including without limitation loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunity, arising out of or related to your use of the Grader, even if AdIQ has been advised of the possibility of such damages. AdIQ's total cumulative liability for any claim arising from the Grader is limited to one hundred U.S. dollars ($100).
Communications consent. If you provide a mobile phone number, you expressly consent to receive transactional SMS messages from AdIQ related to your audit (verification codes, recovery prompts, follow-up from a sales representative). Message and data rates may apply. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP. If you provide an email address, you consent to receive transactional and marketing email from AdIQ relating to your audit. Unsubscribe links are included in every marketing email.
Phone consent and the TCPA. If you submit a phone number through the grader OR if an AdIQ representative sends you the grader link while you are on an active call with us, you are providing express written consent to receive SMS and voice communications from AdIQ at that number for the purposes of your audit and a follow-up business conversation. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. You can revoke consent at any time by replying STOP to an SMS, or by emailing our contact form.
Data we collect and retain. We collect: business name, business location, business website URL, the third-party data we query about that business, your contact information if you provide it (name, email, phone), your browser session details, and (with consent) one-time SMS verification codes. We retain audit records for up to seven (7) years in a legal-defensibility audit log. We retain abandoned-session contact information for up to seven (7) days for the purpose of a single one-time recovery message; sessions that complete the email-capture step are retained as prospect records. Full detail: see the AdIQ Privacy Policy.
California residents (CCPA / CPRA). California residents may request access to, deletion of, or correction of personal information AdIQ holds about them, and may opt out of any "sale" or "share" of personal information. To exercise these rights, email our contact form or use the Request a correction link on any results page. AdIQ does not sell personal information.
Right to refuse + right to be removed. You may refuse to provide any input the grader requests; you can close the page at any time without penalty. After running an audit, you may request full removal of all data we have collected about your business by emailing our contact form or by using the Request a correction link. We complete removal requests within 2 business days.
Re-running the grader may produce different results. Third-party data freshness, AI model output variability, and changes to your business between runs all mean the same business can receive different scores at different times. A score from one run is not binding on AdIQ for any subsequent run.
Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising from your use of the Grader shall be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Orange County, California, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
Changes to this disclaimer. AdIQ may update this disclaimer at any time. The version stamp at the top of this page reflects the version in force. Continued use of the Grader after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.
Questions about this disclaimer or how to exercise your rights: our contact form.