SEO in Wicklow: more customers from Google

• Checked October 2026. The searches ran on 14 October 2026 at about 3pm Irish time; ChatGPT was asked on 14 October 2026.
• The 20 businesses are the first four local businesses in the Google Maps list for each of five trade searches. The searches ran on a phone, logged out, from Bray town centre. Chains, wrong trades, duplicate listings and businesses outside the county were removed first. "The rest of the list" is everyone else in the same cleaned lists: 50 businesses.
• "The first ten results for their own search" means the first ten ordinary results, under the map and the ads, for the business's trade-and-town search, such as "plumber bray". Each result was put in one of four kinds: a local business's own website, a directory or listing, a social media page, or news, forums and national chains together.
• Review figures come from each Google profile: the number of reviews, and the ten newest reviews, for when they were posted and whether the owner replied.
• A website counts only if it is the business's own. A Facebook or Instagram page alone does not.
• A website linked from the Google profile counts as live even when its host shows our checks a bot check or refuses our requests. We cannot read those sites, so they are left out of every page check: "of 13 read" means the 13 sites we could read.
• Google ads come from Google's Ads Transparency Center, looked up by the business's own web address, plus one look at each search. So the ads figures count only businesses with a web address of their own, including sites that no longer work. The ad records cover every ad Google lists for that address, from any date; "in the 30 days before our check" counts the businesses with an ad last shown in that time. Facebook ads were not checked.
• Cost per click is Google's own estimate for each search. Google reports this estimate in US dollars; we converted it at the European Central Bank reference rate on 14 October 2026 (1 euro to 1.1195 US dollars). It is Google's estimate, not a Wagyu price.
• ChatGPT was asked "Who is a good [trade] in [town]?" three times for each trade, from Ireland, with web search on. A business counts as named if any of the answers names it. Its sources are the pages it cited, each put in one kind.
• Distances run from the Bray town centre point to each business's map pin. On the ring chart they are rounded to 0.1 km, and directions to 5 degrees.
• The all-Ireland lines on Google Maps and ChatGPT come from every cleaned Maps list in the study with five or more businesses: 112 searches, 1,721 businesses. They compare businesses in the same search, and show what goes together, not what causes what.
• Figures "across the 26 towns" add up the same count for all 26 study towns, one town per county. Every town was searched the same way on the same day, 14 October 2026.
• Anything else we could not check is left out of that count, and the count says so.
• A median is the middle value. With an even number of businesses it is the average of the two middle values.
• No business from the study is named on these pages.

Sources: Google Ads Transparency Center; European Central Bank euro reference rates.