Meridian15 / Research

The data, not just the finding.

Every original study we publish ships the corpus it was drawn from. No email, no form, no summary standing in for the file. Take the CSV, check our arithmetic, and tell us if we got it wrong.

1. We Analyzed 330 Results in the AI Search Tools Category. Half of It Is Vendors Ranking Themselves.

   We pulled 20 US Google SERPs across the AI search tools category and classified all 330 organic results. Every query carries an AI Overview. 51.5% of results come from vendors selling a tool in the category they rank for.

   Sample

   330 organic results classified

   Collected

   August 1, 2026

   Source

   DataForSEO SERP API

   Dataset

   330 rows × 4 columns

   metrics.csv 32 KBmethod.jsonRead the study

2. AI Overviews Took Over One Category Completely and Left Another Untouched. We Measured 38 Search Results Pages.

   We pulled 38 Google results pages on one day. AI search tool queries returned an AI Overview 20 out of 20 times. Local service queries returned one zero out of 18 times, in both the US and Canada.

   Sample

   38 search pages measured

   Collected

   August 1, 2026

   Source

   DataForSEO SERP API

   Dataset

   38 rows × 5 columns

   metrics.csv 2 KBmethod.jsonRead the study

3. The AI-Blocking Myth: 403 Calgary Sites Later, Almost No One Blocks AI (and the Ones Who Do Picked Wrong)

   We fetched robots.txt for 403 Calgary business homepages. Only 4% block any AI crawler. Most blocks target training bots, which do not stop live AI citation.

   Sample

   403 homepages audited

   Collected

   July 21, 2026

   Source

   First-party crawl

   Dataset

   333 rows × 9 columns

   This post has no winner ranking. Every site is listed anonymized: block posture is reported without naming the business, because blocking or not blocking is a defensible business choice either way.

   metrics.csv 20 KBmethod.jsonRead the study

4. Wix vs Shopify vs WordPress vs Webflow. What Each Website Builder Actually Costs a Calgary Business.

   We joined 5 audit datasets across 350 Calgary business homepages and cross-tabbed by builder. Every platform makes you pay somewhere. Here is exactly where.

   Sample

   403 homepages audited

   Collected

   July 21, 2026

   Source

   First-party crawl

   Dataset

   350 rows × 13 columns

   All sites hashed; this study reports platform-level medians and percentages only.

   metrics.csv 28 KBmethod.jsonRead the study

5. 41% of Calgary Businesses Cannot Be Phoned in One Tap. Every Dentist Can. Almost No Cafe Can.

   We parsed 403 Calgary homepages for tel: links, forms, and booking widgets. 41% cannot be phoned in one tap from mobile. Dentists lead. Cafes bottom.

   Sample

   403 homepages audited

   Collected

   July 21, 2026

   Source

   First-party crawl

   Dataset

   350 rows × 9 columns

   Winners (tel + form + booking + viewport all present on homepage) are named. All other sites are hashed.

   metrics.csv 21 KBmethod.jsonRead the study

6. 72% of Calgary Sites Have Structured Data. Only 61% Told Search Engines They're a Business.

   We parsed JSON-LD on 403 Calgary business homepages. 72% ship structured data. Only 61% marked themselves as a business. 91% skip FAQPage.

   Sample

   403 homepages audited

   Collected

   July 21, 2026

   Source

   First-party crawl

   Dataset

   352 rows × 9 columns

   Winners (fully valid schema + LocalBusiness/Organization + sameAs, ranked by types count) are named. All other sites are hashed.

   metrics.csv 46 KBmethod.jsonRead the study

Reviews of other people's research are taggedResearch on the blog. Only studies where we collected the data ourselves appear here, because those are the only ones with a corpus of ours to hand over.