Overview

The Business Online Presence Report (part of the Online Credibility suite) aggregates a business's digital footprint by surfacing its homepage, social media profiles, and third-party review pages.

Public registry data is often incomplete for modern, digital-first, or thin-file businesses. This report uses AI to automate the discovery of a business's online presence and quickly assess legitimacy and reputation beyond standard registry checks.

Why use this report?

• Automate manual research: Replaces the time analysts spend manually Googling businesses, hunting for social media profiles, and scrolling through review sites.
• Assess legitimacy at a glance: A robust homepage, maintained social profiles, and recent reviews signal a healthy, actively operating business, whereas a lack of presence or orphaned accounts can serve as early risk indicators.
• Verify thin-file businesses: Uncover alternative trust signals for newly formed, digital-first, or micro-businesses that lack a footprint in traditional public registries.

What information does this report provide?

Inputs

Input quality impacts results. Specific business names with additional context (URL or address) yield more accurate matches. Generic names without context may return multiple potential matches.

Required:

• Business name: Legal name or DBA — more specific names yield more accurate matches.
• Country code: Two-letter ISO country code.

Optional (but recommended):

• Business URL: Homepage address — significantly improves accuracy and reduces ambiguous matches.
• Business address: Full address including subdivision/state — reduces ambiguous matches for common business names.

Outputs

• Business Homepage: Displays a link and screenshot of the most relevant webpage found for the business.
• Social Media Pages: Returns links and high-level metadata (such as follower counts, employee counts, post counts, and account age) for associated social platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and Instagram.
• Review pages: Returns links and rating summaries for associated review platforms and aggregators, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Google Reviews, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.

Configuration Options

• LLM Provider Selection: Choose your preferred LLM provider to power the Business Online Presence Report.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How does this report determine the homepage?

The report uses automated searches to retrieve relevant business pages, then evaluates their credibility by checking for matching business information such as name and address.

What should I do if no homepage is found?

If nothing is found, the business may be newly formed, operate strictly offline, or primarily exist on third-party marketplace listings. Consider requesting additional self-reported documentation or utilizing the Business Website Verification if the user provided a direct URL.

Is the Business Online Presence Report a replacement for Business Website Verification?

No. They are complementary. The Business Online Presence Report finds and aggregates a business's broader digital footprint across the web. The Business Website Verification analyzes and verifies a specific domain for fraud signals (e.g., domain age, redirects, malicious content).

What locales and languages do this report support?

The report generally performs well across a wide range of languages when searching. No special locale setup is required.