Lebanon Website Benchmark · November 2026
Only 7 of 58
are fast on a phone
I measured 58 business homepages in Lebanon on a phone: how fast they load, how accessible they are, and how quickly a customer can call, message or email. Across five sectors and five regions, the median speed score was 62.75 out of 100.
- Median mobile speed score, out of 100
- 62.75
- Homepages scoring “good” (90+) on speed
- 7 of 58
- Listed business websites that were dead, parked or empty
- 79 of 172
- Show a phone number you can’t tap to call
- 11 of 45
What I found
Most business websites are slow on a phone
The median mobile speed score was 62.75 out of 100. Only 7 of 58 homepages reached 90, Google’s “good” band, and 11 scored below 50. Hospitality was the slowest sector, with a median of 55.5 and no homepage in the good band.
Nearly half of the listed websites didn’t work
To find 60 working homepages, I tried 172 websites listed for Lebanese businesses on OpenStreetMap and the Yelleb directory. 79 of them (46%) did not load, showed an error, were parked or for sale, or were an empty placeholder.
Contact details are usually there, but not always one tap
45 of 57 homepages show a phone number, WhatsApp, email or contact form, and 8 more are one tap away. But on 11 of those 45, the number is plain text that can’t be tapped, and only 12 offered a WhatsApp link where I found their contact details.
Accessibility basics are often missed
The median automated accessibility score was 84. 46 of 58 homepages scored below 90. Retail and hospitality had the lowest medians, 78 and 77.
Results by sector
Each row is one sector. Hover a bar for the exact count; the tables under each chart hold the same numbers.
Mobile speed score bands
- Poor (0–49)
- Needs improvement (50–89)
- Good (90–100)
Lighthouse performance score on a simulated mid-range phone: below 50 is poor, 50–89 needs improvement, 90 and above is good. Each site’s score is its median across 4 runs.
| Sector | Measured | Median | Poor (0–49) | Needs improvement (50–89) | Good (90–100) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All sectors | 58 | 62.75 | 11 | 40 | 7 |
| Retail | 12 | 63 | 2 | 9 | 1 |
| Hospitality | 11 | 55.5 | 4 | 7 | 0 |
| Health | 11 | 69.5 | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| Professional services | 12 | 64.5 | 1 | 9 | 2 |
| Trades and construction | 12 | 63 | 0 | 10 | 2 |
Median accessibility score
Lighthouse accessibility score. Automated checks catch some problems, not all, so a high score doesn’t prove a site is accessible.
| Sector | Measured | Median | Below 90 |
|---|---|---|---|
| All sectors | 58 | 84 | 46 |
| Retail | 12 | 78 | 8 |
| Hospitality | 11 | 77 | 10 |
| Health | 11 | 84 | 10 |
| Professional services | 12 | 84 | 10 |
| Trades and construction | 12 | 85 | 8 |
Where a phone visitor finds contact details
- On the homepage
- One tap away
- Not within one tap
Reviewed at 390 × 844 pixels, the size of a common phone. One tap means opening the menu or following one visible link. Nothing was called, messaged or submitted.
| Sector | Reviewed | On the homepage | One tap away | Not within one tap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All sectors | 57 | 45 | 8 | 4 |
| Retail | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| Hospitality | 11 | 9 | 1 | 1 |
| Health | 10 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| Professional services | 12 | 10 | 1 | 1 |
| Trades and construction | 12 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
What happened to 172 listed websites
Before measuring anything, every candidate was opened on a phone. Here is what the 172 websites tried, in a fixed order, turned out to be.
- Working homepage, included60
- Did not load within 20 seconds44
- Parked or for sale18
- No sign of serving Lebanon (often an expired domain reused by others)10
- Placeholder, empty or login page9
- Not a business, or the wrong sector9
- Error page8
- Blocked by a bot check7
- A social profile instead of a website6
- Duplicate1
If your business is listed online, check that the link still opens your own working website.
Four things to check on your own site
Make contacting you one tap
Put your phone number and WhatsApp in the first screen on a phone, as links that open the dialer or chat. A number written as plain text, or hidden in the footer on mobile, costs you calls.
Lighten the homepage
Resize and compress photos, remove sliders, animations and plugins you don’t need, and test on a real phone over mobile data. Content should appear in under three seconds.
Fix the readable basics
Make text dark enough against its background, give every button and icon a name, and label every form field. These are the most common automated accessibility failures.
Check every place your website is listed
Directory listings, Google, social profiles: make sure each one points to your current site. Dead and parked links send customers to a dead end, or to someone else.
How does your website compare?
Run the same mobile test on your own site for free. You get your speed, accessibility and SEO scores in under a minute, with what to fix first.
How the benchmark was done
- Sample
- 60 business homepages, 12 in each of five sectors, frozen before anything was measured. Retail, hospitality and health come from OpenStreetMap businesses in Lebanon (chains excluded), in a fixed order unrelated to quality. Professional services and trades come from OpenStreetMap offices and crafts first, then the Yelleb directory. It describes this sample; it is not a national estimate.
- Eligibility
- Each candidate was opened on a phone and kept only if it was the business’s own working homepage and showed that it serves Lebanon. I then read every included site, without looking at any score, and removed non-businesses and off-sector sites.
- Speed and accessibility
- Google PageSpeed Insights, mobile, Lighthouse 13.6.0, run 4 times between November 6, 2026 at 09:52 AM and November 6, 2026 at 12:52 PM (UTC). Each site’s score is its median; 58 sites gave valid results in most runs.
- Ease of contact
- Every measured homepage was opened at 390 × 844 in its default language, first by a script and then checked by hand where unclear. 57 were reviewed; one could not be judged and is left out of that measure.
- Exclusions and corrections
- An earlier draw only checked that pages loaded; measurement showed many were parked, placeholder or foreign sites, so it was withdrawn before publication and the sample drawn again with the content check above. After the freeze, 1 site turned out to be a copy of an old site restored by someone else; it is counted here and not replaced.
- Limits
- Lab tests of homepages only, on a simulated phone and network; real visitors’ speed varies. Automated accessibility checks do not prove compliance. No business, address or individual score is published.
Sites by region
| Sector | Beirut | Mount Lebanon | North | South | Bekaa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Hospitality | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Health | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Professional services | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Trades and construction | 8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Questions
How fast are business websites in Lebanon on a phone?
In this benchmark of 58 Lebanese business homepages, the median mobile speed score was 62.75 out of 100. Only 7 scored 90 or more, and 11 scored below 50.
How many listed Lebanese business websites don’t work?
Of 172 business websites listed on OpenStreetMap and the Yelleb directory and tried for this study, 79 (46%) did not load, showed an error, were parked or for sale, or were an empty placeholder.
Which websites were tested?
The report publishes totals only, so no business is named. To see how your own site scores on the same test, use the free Website Check.
Who made this study?
Joe Boulos, an independent web developer in Lebanon. The method, including how sites were chosen and excluded, is described on this page and the totals can be downloaded.