The method

How we scan every product

Every score on LaunchScaler, in a free listing or a paid review, comes from the same scan. A product's team can pay us to write the review. They can't move the number. Here is exactly how the number is made.

What a review buys

A commissioned review buys the work of writing it up and an indexed page that ranks for the product's name. That's the deliverable, and we disclose it on every review that was paid for.

What it never buys

The verdict. The score comes from the scan below and can't be edited by the product's team or by us. A review that failed a check says so, which is the proof it wasn't bought.

The seven checks

Each check runs against a published standard, not our own opinion. We measure what the standard measures, score it 0-100, and show our work.

1

Search

Whether search engines can find, read and rank the page.

Google Search Essentials

2

AI visibility

Whether answer engines cite you when they should.

Answer-engine access

3

Backlinks

Who links to you, and whether those links carry weight.

Referring-domain graph

4

Security

Headers, TLS, and what an attacker sees first.

OWASP Secure Headers

5

Compliance

Consent, policy pages, and the disclosures you owe.

WCAG 2.2 AA · GDPR

6

Does it work

Links, forms and flows that fail silently.

HTTP status · WHATWG DOM

7

Speed & visual

How fast it loads and how it renders at every size.

Google Core Web Vitals

How the score works

Each check returns a score from 0 to 100. We roll those into one readiness score, weighted by how much of each check we could actually measure. A signal we couldn't read is shown as not measured, never counted as a failure.

The overall score maps to three bands, so a reader can place a product at a glance: Ready at 75 and above, Needs work from 50 to 74, and Not ready below 50.

We re-scan as a site changes, so the date on a review is a real one. When a product fixes what a check flagged and the score moves, we show the before and after rather than quietly swapping the number.

Run the same scan on your own site

The scan is free and returns the same seven checks a review is built on. See where you stand before anyone else does.