The State of the Squamish Surface

Squamish shows up for its businesses.

125,298

public Google reviews across town. People here talk about what they find.

4.69

the average of rated Google profiles, with each profile weighted equally.

568

businesses reviewed so far this year. The conversation is current.

16%

of the 716 audited businesses had a severity 4 or 5 browser verdict: 112 businesses. This is not a town-wide estimate.

A business map, followed by selected browser audits.

In August 2026 I mapped 889 candidates: 12 closed or gone and 877 marked open. Of these, 716 have audit records. The work combined an automated website screen, manual browser work and automated browser batches under my direction.

The map began as a commercial prospecting exercise. The audit set was selected, not random; 161 open businesses were not audited. Records show some rechecks but do not establish that every failure was checked again.

The town at a glance

Source: August 2026 commercial map segments. Of the 595 in other segments, 149 have no browser verdict and 56 have severity 3 verdicts; this group is not a count of clear audits.

The map and the browser audit answer different questions.

A failed public path can prevent a customer from taking the next step. The audit records what was observed, not the number of customers affected or the cost to a business.

Browser findings, with audit coverage shown.

Reply activity in a small review sample.

393

businesses hold thirty or more public reviews.

216

of those show no owner response among up to their three newest reviews sampled.

60%

of the 775 businesses with sampled review data show no owner response in that sample: 468 businesses.

114

profiles were marked unclaimed in the source data.

What a CLEAR audit verdict means.

These are useful maintenance checks, not a certification of every property of the 399 businesses.

399 of the 716 audited businesses had a CLEAR verdict under the customer-path checks.

How the town takes work in

Among the readable sites, visible online systems and forms were much less common for quotes and orders than for enquiries.

Of the 877 open businesses, 755 have a website of their own; 642 of those could be read in September 2026. The scan records visible systems, forms, directions to phone or email, and cases where no path was found. It does not observe how the business handles the work.

What the findings mean

The audit identifies public paths worth checking. It does not measure lost revenue or establish demand for a service.

These are historical observations from a selected frame. Future editions need a reviewed method and an updated or explicitly fixed cohort.

The original field-note format

The original field-note format described one observed customer-path issue and a possible fix. A field note was a separate observation, not a certification of the report’s commercial segments.

Sources and method

Full methodology, sampling and corrections

Source: byImprint business map and browser audits, 14 August 2026, and intake census, 8 September 2026. Corrected 20 September 2026 using existing records; no new collection.

The frame combined Google Maps category searches with Chamber and Downtown BIA directories. It covers Squamish, Garibaldi Highlands, Brackendale, Valleycliffe and Britannia. It is not a complete business register or a random sample.

Of 877 mapped open businesses, 716 have audit records and 161 do not. The map was built for commercial targeting. Of the unaudited businesses, 113 were marked as non-targets and 48 remained commercial prospects. Audit results cannot be generalized to the whole town.

Browser verdicts and commercial map segments are different measures. The original 160 is the rescue or repair segment; 112 of 716 audited businesses have severe browser verdicts. The original mobile, phone-conflict and domain counts are withdrawn because their derivation cannot be reliably reconstructed.

The review-response measure inspects up to three newest reviews per business. No response in that sample does not mean the business has never replied. Average rating weights each rated profile equally.

The September intake scan read 642 of 755 attempted websites. Another 62 were blocked, 43 unreachable and eight excluded by robots rules. At most six pages per site, one request every two seconds per host, nothing submitted. The scan does not observe internal workflows.

Each online system or form found was opened at desktop and phone widths. A visible finishing control counts as a path that finishes; no booking, order or message was completed. Of 1,412 viewport checks, 1,327 reached that control, 25 did not and 60 could not be verified.

No online path found means no system or form was detected for that path. It includes services the business may not offer. It does not establish manual work or demand. Missed dynamic paths and unread sites may affect the shares; the full-run classification accuracy and net bias have not been measured.

September category counts are withheld when the count or its complement is below five. Dots on a withheld row show sample size only. This is a disclosure control, not a guarantee of anonymity. Vendors are named only where software signatures were identified; an observed tool does not prove active use.