1 in 4 Web Design Websites Has Fewer Than 10 Sites Linking to It
26% of web design and development websites in Diib's data had fewer than 10 other websites linking to them, more than three times the 8% rate for websites in other industries.
A quarter of web design and development websites have almost no other sites linking to them, a far higher rate than other small businesses. For a business competing in search, that's a quiet handicap, and most web designers have an easy way to fix it.
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. Search engines treat them like references: the more trustworthy sites link to you, the more authority your site tends to have. For businesses that build websites for everyone else, Diib’s data shows a surprisingly common gap.
What the data shows
Diib looked at the latest backlink and Domain Authority data for websites checked in the past 120 days. Domain Authority is a 1–100 score from the SEO company Moz that estimates how well a site is likely to rank.
- 26% of web design and development websites (about 5,500 sites) had fewer than 10 referring domains, meaning fewer than 10 different websites linking to them. That compares with 8% of about 237,000 websites in other industries.
- The median web design site had links from about 74 websites, versus 106 elsewhere.
- 48% had a Domain Authority under 10, versus 38% of other websites. The median score was 10, versus 12.
What this does and doesn’t tell you
This is aggregated Diib data. It counts links, not their quality or relevance, and Domain Authority is an estimate, not a Google ranking factor. The group likely includes many freelancers and new studios whose sites simply haven’t been around long enough to earn links.
Still, it’s a notable gap for businesses whose clients often find them through search. Many web designers put a “designed by” credit in their clients’ footers, but those links point somewhere only if they’re turned on and kept up to date.