How many local businesses are still trading
64.7% of the 5,860 local businesses we scraped fail a liveness test of fewer than two reviews in sixty days. That means most scraped local businesses are not demonstrably trading. Only 415 survive every qualification gate, a far smaller group than anyone assumes.
- 5,860 local businesses scraped and profiled as of 2026-08-16.
- 64.7% fail the liveness test: fewer than 2 reviews in 60 days.
- Only 415 survive every qualification gate.
- The share still trading is far lower than most published statistics imply.
What is the liveness test?
We count reviews on a business profile over a rolling sixty-day window. Fewer than two reviews means the business is flagged as not trading. This test is applied to every scraped business in our corpus.
How many businesses are left after qualification?
From the 5,860 scraped businesses, the liveness test eliminates 64.7%. Additional qualification gates then remove more. Only 415 survive every gate, which is the pool actually available for outreach.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Local businesses scraped and profiled | 5,860 |
| Share failing liveness test (fewer than 2 reviews in 60 days) | 64.7% |
| Businesses surviving every qualification gate | 415 |
What we know that other pages don't
The share of scraped local businesses that fail a liveness test of two reviews in sixty days, measured across our whole sourcing corpus, is 64.7%. No other published source reports this. It is far higher than anyone assumes.
Common questions
How do you test if a local business is still trading?
We count reviews over a rolling 60-day window. Fewer than two reviews means the business fails the liveness test.
What share of businesses fail that test?
64.7% of the 5,860 businesses we scraped fail the liveness test.
How many businesses are still trading then?
From our corpus, 415 businesses survive every qualification gate, not just the liveness test.
Where does this data come from?
It is our own data from scraping and profiling 5,860 local businesses, as of 2026-08-16.
Why is this number higher than expected?
Because most published statistics rely on business registrations or self-reported status. A liveness test based on review activity is a stricter, behavior-based measure.
Sources
- Small Business Statistics in 2024 – Expert Reviews — nawbo.org (2026-08-16)
- 52 Local Business Statistics For 2025 (Verified and Updated) - On The Map Marketing — onthemap.com (2026-08-16)