The 2026 Moruya Business Website Report

The links that went nowhere

I clicked the website link on 204 Google listings for Moruya-area businesses. 17 of them went nowhere. Nine landed on a page that no longer exists, six on a domain that has lapsed, two on a parked holding page. That's one in twelve, the worst rate of the four South Coast areas I looked at and double Batemans Bay's.

A dead link on a Google listing is worse than no website at all. The customer has found you, decided to look further, and been handed an error. Most of them won't ring to ask why. They'll tap the next listing.

So before anything else on this page: open your own Google listing on your phone and tap the website link. It takes a minute. One in twelve of your neighbours needs to do the same.

What happens when you tap the website link on a Moruya Google listing

204 listings. Working site: 169 (83%). Led nowhere: 17 (8%); 9 dead links, 6 lapsed domains, 2 parked pages. Couldn't be checked: 18 (9%).

• Working site169 (83%)
• Led nowhere17 (8%)9 dead links, 6 lapsed domains, 2 parked pages
• Couldn't be checked18 (9%)

What I checked, and who

The 204 businesses in the sample came from Google listings across trades, building, hospitality, accommodation, retail, professional services, health, beauty and a few smaller groups. Independent businesses only. Chains were left out, and so was anyone whose only web presence is a Facebook page. Moruya here takes in the town, Moruya Heads, Broulee, Mossy Point, Tomakin and Tuross Head.

169 sites loaded properly and went through all ten checks. 17 were dead. 18 refused an automated visit or didn't load properly, and I've left them out of every figure here.

No business is named with its results, and I won't say which ones did badly. If you'd like to know whether your business was included in the audit, feel free to reach out and I'll share the results with you.

The walk from search to phone call

Think about what a customer does. They search on their phone, they tap your listing, they tap your website, and they look for a way to get in touch. Here's how far they get on a typical Moruya site.

They tap the website link. 92% of the time it works.

They land on the homepage and look for a phone number. 40% of sites, 67 of the 169, show one on the first screen. On the other 60% they scroll or open a menu.

They tap the number. On 72% of sites there's a tap-to-call link somewhere on the page, the best of the four areas. But 36% of sites keep that link below the first screen, and 4% show a number that isn't a link at all, so it has to be typed in.

They try the other way in. 68% of sites have an enquiry form and 11% link out to a booking or ordering system. 15% offer only an email address. 7% have no online enquiry route I could find, and 7% have neither that nor a tap-to-call link.

They ring the number. And here Moruya does something well. On 94% of sites the phone number matches the one on the Google listing, the best result of the four areas. That matters more than it sounds. A listing with one number and a website with another is how calls end up going to a phone nobody answers.

Only 29% of Moruya sites get the customer through the whole walk with all three contact checks passed: number on the first screen, tap-to-call link, and a way to enquire online.

The word "Home"

42% of Moruya homepage titles don't name a town or the region. That's about the South Coast average. What isn't average is that 20% of Moruya titles start with the word "Home", the highest of the four areas and well above the 13% elsewhere.

"Home | Smith Plumbing" is the default a lot of site builders leave behind when nobody changes it. The title is the blue line in search results, the most valuable sentence on the page, and a fifth of Moruya businesses are spending it on a word that tells Google nothing. If your title starts with "Home", changing it is a two-minute job and probably the best two minutes you'll spend on your website this year.

68% of sites have no local business structured data, the behind-the-scenes markup that tells Google and AI search what the business is and where. That mostly depends on the platform. Some builders add it on their own, and most of the WordPress sites I saw didn't have it.

98% of sites can be read without JavaScript, which matters for AI assistants and some crawlers. Moruya is fine there.

Speed

Google's PageSpeed test loads each site on a simulated mid-range phone over a slow connection and times how long the main content takes to appear. It's harsh. It's also closer to a phone in a Tuross car park than your office computer is, and it's the same test for every site.

The median Moruya site took 7.3 seconds. 15% showed their main content within 4 seconds, and 3% within Google's "good" line of 2.5 seconds. A third took more than 10 seconds.

How long the main content took to appear

Google's PageSpeed test, which simulates a mid-range phone on a slow connection

Within 4 seconds: 15%. 4 to 6 seconds: 21%. 6 to 10 seconds: 31%. More than 10 seconds: 33%.

1. Within 4 seconds15%
2. 4 to 6 seconds21%
3. 6 to 10 seconds31%
4. More than 10 seconds33%

The slow groups are the ones you'd guess. Half of hospitality sites, half of accommodation sites and half of beauty sites took more than 10 seconds. The accountants and lawyers were quickest, with a median of 4.5 seconds and one site in sixteen over 10, mostly because their sites don't carry forty photos of the river.

By industry

Groups under 8 sites aren't shown.

Phone number on the first screen, by industry

Share of Moruya sites that show a phone number before any scrolling, on a phone

Professional services, 16 sites: 69%. Trades and home services, 29 sites: 59%. Health and medical, 17 sites: 53%. Building and construction, 26 sites: 38%. Hospitality and food, 18 sites: 22%. Beauty and wellness, 10 sites: 20%. Accommodation, 16 sites: 19%. Retail, 12 sites: 17%.

1. Professional services 16 sites69%
2. Trades and home services 29 sites59%
3. Health and medical 17 sites53%
4. Building and construction 26 sites38%
5. Hospitality and food 18 sites22%
6. Beauty and wellness 10 sites20%
7. Accommodation 16 sites19%
8. Retail 12 sites17%

Two rows stand out. Accommodation sites nearly all have a tap-to-call link (94%) and nearly none put it on the first screen (19%). The booking widget takes the top of the page and the phone number goes to the footer, which is fine for someone planning from Canberra and useless for someone who's just driven in. And health sites name their town in the title 94% of the time, against 25% for retail.

Trades versus builders

55 of the 169 sites belong to trades or builders, and the two groups behave quite differently.

The trades and home services sites (plumbers, electricians, landscapers, cleaners) are the best contact group in Moruya: 59% show the number on the first screen, 86% have a tap-to-call link, and 90% have a way to enquire. The builders and construction businesses manage 38%, 69% and 69%.

I think I know why. Builders have bigger sites with more to show, and the phone number is one of the things that gets lost when a site is built around a gallery. A plumber's site is usually a phone number with a page attached, and that's not a criticism.

Taken together, 49% of trade and building sites show a number on the first screen, against 35% of the other Moruya sites. 38% pass all three contact checks. 80% have an enquiry form and 18% offer an email link only. On being found they're behind the rest of the town: 51% have a title that doesn't name a place and 71% have no structured data. The median trade site took 6.1 seconds to load.

Moruya against the rest of the coast

Same checks in Batemans Bay, Narooma, and Bega and Merimbula. On most measures the four areas sit within a few points of each other. The industry differences are far bigger than the town differences.

Three things do set Moruya apart. The dead-link rate, 8.3% against 4.8% across the other three areas. The share of titles starting with "Home", 20% against 13%. And, in Moruya's favour, the match between website and Google listing numbers, 94% against 88%.

Across the nine checks that aren't about speed, the typical Moruya site passed 7. 6% passed all nine. Only 8% passed four or fewer, the lowest of the four areas. Moruya has fewer sites at the bottom, even if the top looks like everywhere else.

If you run a business in Moruya

Tap your own Google listing's website link on your phone. With one in twelve going nowhere, this comes first.

Then look at your page title. If it starts with "Home", change it to what you do and where. "Plumber in Moruya | Smith Plumbing" is the whole job.

Put the phone number on the first screen, and make it tappable. If you run accommodation, that means next to the booking button, not below it.

Give people a second way in that isn't a bare email address. A short form does it.

Check your speed on a phone. If your photos went up straight off a camera, that's where the seconds are going.

How I did this

Every site was loaded on a simulated phone screen, 390 pixels wide, and checked for ten things: whether the homepage title names a town or the region; whether the content can be read without JavaScript; whether local business structured data is present; whether the main content shows within 2.5 seconds in Google's PageSpeed test (median of three runs); whether the page and everything it loads use HTTPS; whether it's laid out for a phone screen; whether the phone number can be tapped to call; whether a phone number is visible on the first screen; whether there's a way to enquire or book online; and whether the phone number matches the Google listing. Speed is reported on its own and isn't part of any score.

The sample came from Google listings across a set list of industries, collected in July and checked in October 2026. Independent businesses only. 169 of 204 sites were checked in full. The checks are automated, and a sample of sites was given a visual check against the results before publishing. Same again in 2027. The full method, including every pass rule and what was left out, is on the methodology page.