Gilbert Stephens — Exeter Solicitor Digital Visibility Score

Digital Visibility Score: 76 / 100 · Rank 1 of 8

Digital Visibility Score76/100Rank 1 of 8 · top 1%Problems found1The site has not changed in a long time Furthest behind-2.5Local presence: 77 against a sector median of 79.5

Measured 3 October 2026 via the PYC Exeter Solicitor Digital Visibility Index. Every figure is objective and reproducible from the methodology. Spotted an error? Request a correction.

Pillar breakdown vs sector median

Each pillar scored 0–100 against the sector median for this index. The final column is this firm's distance from that median.

Pillar	Score	Median	vs median
Speed & CWV	78	66.5	+11.5
Technical	100	100	level
Local presence	77	79.5	−2.5
Visibility	49	23	+26
AI search presence	60	20	+40
Content & trust	87	78.5	+8.5

Pillar performance against the sector median. Bars right of centre are above the median, left are below.

Speed & CWV		+11.5
Technical		0
Local presence		-2.5
Visibility		+26
AI search presence		+40
Content & trust		+8.5

Problems found

These are specific, checkable faults on the site — not opinions about it.

Worth knowingThe site has not changed in a long timeThe homepage last reported a change 10.9 years ago.

Where this firm ranks

Ranks for 6 of 12 keywords, average position 3.7, in the local 3-pack for 1 keyword.

Keyword	Position
solicitors Exeter	#5
best solicitors Exeter	not in top 100
conveyancing solicitors Exeter	not in top 100
family law solicitors Exeter	not in top 100
employment solicitors Exeter	#2
wills and probate Exeter	#3
personal injury solicitors Exeter	#1
divorce solicitors Exeter	#4
legal advice Exeter	#7
solicitors St Leonards	not in top 100
solicitors Heavitree	not in top 100
conveyancing St Leonards	not in top 100

AI search presence

Named in 3 of 5 AI answers. A domain citation is stronger evidence than a name mention.

✓	Who are the best solicitors in Exeter?	named
✗	Which law firm in Exeter would you recommend for conveyancing?
✗	Top rated family law solicitors in Exeter
✓	I need a solicitor in Exeter - who should I contact?	named
✓	Best solicitors in St Leonards, Exeter	named

Local presence

Google Business Profile.

Rating	4.4 / 5
Reviews	93
Locations	1
Reviews in last 90 days	0
Address matches website	yes

Lab speed against real users

Largest Contentful Paint measured two ways: one throttled lab run, against 28 days of real Chrome users.

Lab (Lighthouse, mobile)	21.1s	one throttled load on a datacentre machine
Field (real users)	0.8s	75th percentile of actual Chrome visitors over 28 days

The lab figure is 26× the real-user figure. Both agree the site is performing acceptably for real visitors.

What customers talk about

Themes Google extracted from this business’s reviews, by how often customers raise them. Not scored — this is what people say, not how findable the business is.

helpful staff21
smooth process20
conveyancing19
property purchase10
solicitors7
responsiveness5
sound advice3
quick paperwork handling2
informative staff2
contactable2

Why this score

What each score is made of. Every input here is in the open dataset, so the arithmetic can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Pillar	Score	Made up of
Content & trust	87	about page: yes · people introduced: yes · credentials: yes · blog or news: yes · homepage: 886 words · last changed: 3979 days ago
Visibility	49	ranks for 6 of 12 keywords · average position 3.7 · local 3-pack: 1
Local presence	77	93 reviews · rated 4.4 · 0 new in 90 days
Technical	100	HTTPS: yes · page allows indexing: — · robots.txt allows crawling: yes · sitemap: yes · structured data: —

Key findings

No pillar falls materially below the sector median this quarter.

Top fixes (ranked by impact)

Build local landing pages for the core keyword basket to lift organic and local-pack appearance.
Publish structured, citable content and entity schema so AI engines surface the business for core local queries.
Restart Google review generation and complete the Business Profile to close the local-pack gap.

Firms ranked near this one

The firms nearest Gilbert Stephens in this ranking, beyond the two either side.

Firm	Rank	Score	Why it is here
Amicus Law	#3	70/100	2 places below you
Dunn & Baker	#4	66/100	3 places below you
Stephens Scown	#5	66/100	4 places below you
Setfords Exeter	#6	65/100	5 places below you

Context (not scored)

Recorded alongside the measurement to make it easier to judge, but carrying no weight in the Digital Visibility Score. See the methodology.

Companies House	Company OC352723 · 16.6 years old · active
Real-user speed (CrUX)	LCP 811ms · INP 70ms · CLS 0 · passes Core Web Vitals
Lighthouse (lab, mobile)	Performance 60 · accessibility 84 · best practices 96 · SEO 92 — biggest losses: Largest Contentful Paint; Use efficient cache lifetimes; Links rely on color to be distinguishable.
Google profile detail	4 photos · claimed · has a description · hours listed · 11 of 93 reviews are one star
Backlinks	181 referring domains · 1301 links · rank 220
Site structure	25 pages crawled · 148.1 internal links per page · reachable in: contact 1 click, about 1 click, team 1 click, services 1 click · 1% of links use a generic anchor
Sitemap	57 URLs listed · not declared in robots.txt · newest entry 15 days old · 5 of 5 sampled URLs resolve

Where to get this fixed

Gilbert Stephens’s lowest-scoring pillars among those we publish remediation guidance for:

Visibility (49/100) — read topical authority on why ranking breadth across a sector beats chasing single terms. Background on analysing this pillar: visibility.
AI search presence (60/100) — read generative engine optimisation on getting named by the answer engines this pillar measures. Background on analysing this pillar: ai search presence.

How this is measured: see the index methodology, and the statistical methods behind each pillar. This index is published by PYC; if you want this score moved, start here.