Blog · Jul 10, 2026
Custom sites vs platform sites: who scores better?
Sites with no detected platform scored lower than every major platform on average. A custom build can do better, but it has to be done deliberately.
Key takeaways
- 4,833 of 10,369 scored sites (47%) had no platform we could identify. They averaged 62.7, below Wix (73.4), WordPress (70.8), Squarespace (69.5), Webflow (69.3) and GoDaddy (66.1).
- "No platform detected" includes custom builds, less common systems and sites where our detector found no clue, so it isn't the same as "custom."
- Custom work can score well, but nothing in it catches missed basics the way a platform's defaults do.
What the data shows
| Group | Average score |
|---|---|
| Wix | 73.4 |
| WordPress | 70.8 |
| Squarespace | 69.5 |
| Webflow | 69.3 |
| GoDaddy builder | 66.1 |
| No platform detected | 62.7 |
Platforms win on average, and the gap to Wix is about 11 points. Two more differences in our data are worth noting. Among sites with no detected platform, 3.4% blocked at least one AI crawler in robots.txt, versus 1.3% on WordPress and 0.1% on Wix. And 7.3% of them had at least 30% more words after JavaScript ran than in the raw page, versus 3.6% on WordPress and 0.5% on Wix. That suggests some content appears only once scripts run, and simple crawlers can miss it.
Why platforms tend to win
Platforms make the basics hard to get wrong:
- Semantic HTML by default. Templates render real headings and paragraphs.
- Sitemaps and mobile layouts are generated automatically.
- Built-in fields for titles, descriptions and basic structured data, often through SEO plugins.
- Maintenance. Platforms update their templates as standards change.
What custom can do
A well-built custom site can beat any template: clean semantic HTML, tuned structured data, fast performance and exactly the FAQ you want. Our data can't tell us why the average custom or unidentified site scores lower. The cause may be missed basics, a lack of maintenance, or both, and we haven't separated them. What the data shows is that these sites more often lack the basics.
What to ask your developer
If your site is custom-built, send this checklist:
- Does every page have exactly one H1, with H2 and H3 headings in logical order? (Check with View Source, not by eye.)
- Is there an XML sitemap, and is it submitted in Google Search Console?
- Does each page have a unique title and meta description?
- Is there LocalBusiness or FAQPage structured data?
- Does robots.txt allow the AI crawlers you want, and does the server let them in?
- Is the main text in the page's HTML, not only loaded by JavaScript?
- When was the site last reviewed against current standards?
If you get "I don't know" on more than two, a structured review will likely pay for itself.
Should you switch to a platform?
Not necessarily. If your developer relationship works and the site serves you well, run the checklist and fix what it finds before considering a rebuild. Consider a platform only if the site is also hard to update, expensive to maintain, or missing features you need.
The bottom line
Paying for custom work doesn't buy AI readiness on its own. It buys the option. If you went custom, make sure someone owns the checklist a platform would otherwise handle for you. Run a scan to see where you stand.
About this data: 10,369 small business sites scored in October 2026; platform identified for 5,536 sites. Blocking and JavaScript percentages are from SERAVERRA's scan data.