Methodology: Houston Spanish-Language Digital Presence Study 2026

Purpose

This appendix documents how the Houston Spanish-Language Digital Presence Study 2026 was built, so that the results can be checked, repeated and compared with future editions. The study is descriptive: it reports what was observed in this sample. It is not a statistically representative estimate for all Houston businesses.

Sample funnel

• Initial sample: 300 businesses, 50 in each of six sectors.
• Audited: 241 websites that loaded with readable content.
• Excluded from the denominator (59): 37 blocked automated requests or returned server errors; 18 were unreachable (domain not found, 404 or timeout); 4 had lost their domain (expired, parked for sale, or redirecting to an unrelated site).

Sampling frame and selection

• Source: public Better Business Bureau (BBB) listings for Houston, TX, retrieved on October 2, 2026.
• Selection: category searches for each sector in BBB "Best Match" order, rotating across the sector's categories until 50 eligible businesses were reached.
• Inclusion: listing city is Houston; listing active; BBB category matches the sector; the BBB profile shows the business's own website.
• Exclusion: BBB-hosted mini-sites, social media pages, and websites already selected (duplicate domains).
• National brands and franchises with a Houston listing were kept and flagged; results for local and independent businesses only are reported separately.

Sectors and BBB categories

• Construction / Home Services: roofing contractors, plumbers, general contractors, air conditioning contractors, electricians.
• Healthcare: dentists, physicians and surgeons, chiropractors, medical clinics.
• Legal: lawyers and attorneys.
• Automotive: auto repair, used car dealers, auto body repair.
• Restaurants / Hospitality: restaurants, caterers, hotels.
• Professional Services: accounting services, insurance agencies, real estate agents, tax return preparation.

Audit procedure

• Each homepage was requested server-side with a standard desktop browser identity; redirects were followed; the HTML was parsed. JavaScript was not executed.
• A Spanish URL was searched for in this order: hreflang tags, a language switcher (links such as "Español" or "ES"), links to an /es/ path, an es. subdomain or a lang=es parameter.
• When a Spanish URL was found, it was requested and parsed with the same rules.
• Spanish text share was estimated from the relative frequency of common Spanish and English function words.

Definitions

• Real Spanish-language experience: a dedicated Spanish version or a Spanish-primary website.
• Dedicated Spanish version: a reachable Spanish URL whose text is at least 50% Spanish by the word-share estimate.
• Spanish-primary website: the main website is in Spanish (declared Spanish with at least 40% Spanish text, or at least 80% Spanish text).
• Translation widget/plugin only: a translation tool (for example GTranslate, Google Translate, Weglot, WPML) is present but no Spanish URL was found. These are not counted as a real Spanish experience because search engines cannot index a separate Spanish page.
• English only, mentions Spanish spoken: the text says "se habla español" or similar, with no Spanish content.
• hreflang reciprocal: the Spanish page includes hreflang links back to English or x-default.

Spanish Digital Readiness Index (0–100)

• Spanish coverage (25): dedicated Spanish version 15; at least 300 words 5; most internal links stay in Spanish 5. Widget only: 5. "Spanish spoken" mention only: 3.
• Technical implementation (20): independent Spanish URL 5; hreflang with Spanish on the English page 5; reciprocal hreflang 5; self-referencing canonical 3; lang="es" 2.
• Conversion readiness (20): Spanish navigation 5; Spanish buttons and calls to action 5; Spanish contact form 5; phone or WhatsApp visible 5.
• Search visibility signals (20): indexable Spanish page 10; schema declares Spanish 5; lang="es" 5.
• Profile consistency (15): not measured in this edition.
• Score = measured points / 85 × 100. Spanish-primary websites: coverage 25; technical 5 plus 2 if lang="es"; conversion 10 plus phone 5 plus WhatsApp 5; visibility 10.

Limitations

• Results describe this sample only and are not statistically representative of all Houston businesses.
• JavaScript was not executed; content or translations loaded by scripts may be under-counted.
• 59 of 300 selected websites could not be audited and are excluded from percentages; Automotive is the most affected sector (16 blocked).
• Language share is an estimate based on common words, not full language detection.
• Google rankings for Spanish searches and Google Business Profiles were not measured.
• BBB listings over-represent BBB-accredited businesses.
• No business was contacted, and individual businesses are not named in public outputs.

Data

Aggregated results by sector are available as a CSV file: houston-spanish-digital-presence-2026-aggregate.csv. Return to the study.