Benchmark · September 2026
The State of Chamber of Commerce Websites
We scanned the homepages of 300 chambers of commerce drawn at random from the IRS register. 229 answered. This is what those 229 homepages have in common.
Scanned September 21, 2026
Nine in ten chamber homepages fail at least one serious accessibility check. A third fail a critical one.
Four in five chambers have not told the world who may send email as them. Two in three run on WordPress, and most of those publish an administrator's username.
Headline numbers
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Accessibility score (Lighthouse, 0 to 100) | median 59; a quarter at 47 or below; 68 sites (30%) under 50; 13 sites (6%) at 90 or above |
| At least one serious or critical accessibility failure | 214 sites (93%) |
| At least one critical accessibility failure | 81 sites (35%) |
| Text without enough color contrast | 168 sites (73%) |
| Links with no readable text | 144 sites (63%) |
| Heading levels that skip | 126 sites (55%) |
| Images with no alternative text | 35 sites (15%) |
| Performance score | median 79; 38 sites (17%) at 90 or above; 8 under 50 |
| No meta description | 108 sites (47%) |
| Email: DMARC absent or monitoring-only | 181 sites (79%); absent outright on 65 (28%) |
| SSL certificate expiring within about six weeks | 59 sites (26%) |
| At least one dead internal link on the homepage | 92 sites (40%) |
| Runs on WordPress | 151 sites (66%) |
| Publishes a username through the REST API | 126 sites (55%), and 83% of the sites on WordPress |
| Links to GrowthZone or ChamberMaster hosted pages | at least 88 sites (38%) |
Publish a DMARC record
One DNS record, about an hour with your email provider's instructions. It stops strangers from sending email as your chamber. 79% of the sample has not done it.
Fix the contrast on your theme's link and body colors
Usually one or two color values in the theme. Three in four chamber homepages fail this check, and it is the first thing an accessibility complaint cites.
Hide usernames from the REST API
One filter or one security plugin setting. Most chambers on WordPress publish an administrator's login name to anyone who asks.
Check the certificate date
A quarter of the sample expires within six weeks. Renewal is usually automatic; when it is not, the site shows a browser warning to every visitor.
Sample: 300 chambers of commerce drawn at random from IRS-registered organizations with a website on file and revenue of at least $250,000 or unknown.
Scan: one homepage per site with the same runner as the free audit, robots respected, eight seconds between sites, on September 21, 2026. 229 sites returned a scannable homepage; the rest refused the scanner or timed out. Every percentage below is of the 229.
Counts are of sites, not of occurrences, so one noisy template cannot inflate a number. Findings the scanner is known to get wrong (Cloudflare challenges read as cloaking, social networks refusing a bot) were removed before anything was counted.
The findings record, with the triage, is public in the LFW repository. No site is named anywhere.
Where does your chamber's site sit against the 229?
Enter your domain and your email. We run the same free audit on your homepage and send you a scorecard with your numbers beside the sample's. The email confirms your address first; nothing sends until you click it. Then you get the chamber letter once a month, and you can stop it any time.
One confirmation email first. Nothing sends until you click it. The letter comes once a month and every send has a one-click way out.
Want the full picture for your own site?
The free audit above covers the homepage. A full audit covers the whole site, forms, email and accessibility, with a fix list. Either way, the next step is a quote or a call.