{"id":2067,"slug":"caveats-tier-mapping-vendor-quarantine","title":"Caveats — vendor quarantine for tier-mapping evidence","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["digital-presence-work-tiers"],"reference_body":"**Quarantined vendor sources (commercial incentive flagged — used directionally only):**\n\n- **Whitespark** (Edmonton, Alberta) — sells local-SEO tools/services. Source of GBP weighting and ranking-factor survey.\n- **BrightLocal** — sells local SEO/citation/review tools. Source of consumer review survey.\n- **Ahrefs / Semrush / Moz** — SEO SaaS. Ranking, citation, timeline statistics. Ahrefs' 1.7% figure cuts against own incentive (more credible).\n- **Local Falcon, ReplyOnTheFly, BizIQ, SOCi, Schema App, AI-SEO vendors (AirOps, Stridec, CXL)** — sell the exact service described.\n- **Web-design agencies** — repackage academic credibility / 27%-no-website stats with incentive to sell websites.\n\n**Non-vendor / higher-trust sources used:** Google Search Central / Google for Developers, web.dev, Google/SOASTA research, HTTP Archive Web Almanac, schema.org, peer-reviewed journals (Lindgaard 2006; Robins & Holmes 2008), Harvard Business School (Luca WP 12-016), Statistics Canada / ISED for Canadian baselines.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-smb-widget-difficulty-to-work-june-2026","title":"Research brief: SMB widget difficulty-to-work mapping — three tiers of work for three sizes of gap (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:02.774Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:02.774Z"}