Meridian15 research
The data, not just the finding.
Every original study we publish ships the corpus it was drawn from. No email, no form, no summary standing in for the file. Take the CSV, check our arithmetic, and tell us if we got it wrong.
- Datasets
- 8
- Rows published
- 2,048
- Raw CSV
- 210 KB
- $67,453What the work costs.October 19, 2026
- 24We audited our own advice.October 15, 2026
- 0 of 18The AI Overview split.August 1, 2026
- 51.5%Who owns the AI search tools category?August 1, 2026
- 4.2%The AI-blocking myth.July 21, 2026
- 72%Broken schema in Calgary.July 21, 2026
- 41%One tap to call.July 21, 2026
- 50%The platform tax.July 21, 2026
Study 01
$67,453
Yearly cost to an employer of a Calgary graphic designer at the $30.00 Job Bank median wage
Provider names and URLs are withheld; each row is one published price.
What the work costs.
What marketing specialists really cost in Calgary in 2026.
Designers, social managers, ads and SEO specialists, copywriters, consultants and Shopify experts: what 2026 Calgary prices buy, and why a rate is not a wage.
- $5,000 to $7,000Full brand identity, established tier, Alberta providers
- $700 to $1,500Social media management a month, established tier, Alberta providers
- $600 to $1,000Paid ads management a month, ad spend extra, Calgary providers
- $4,000Median monthly starting price of offers sold as fractional CMO, Calgary providers ($2,000 to $6,000)
| role | region | published_ | price_ | service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graphic design | Calgary area | from $1,200 CAD | starting | Logo design (Logo Direction) |
| Graphic design | Calgary area | from $3,500 CAD | starting | Brand refresh |
| Graphic design | Calgary area | from $5,500 CAD (Brand + Website Direction from $7,500+) | starting | Full brand identity |
| Graphic design | Calgary area | $1,500 CAD (page also shows $1,000 USD) | starting | Logo design (Growth plan) |
Study 02
24
Posts that mention llms.txt
We audited our own advice.
Google says llms.txt does nothing for Search. We checked our own 84 posts.
Google now says its Search ignores llms.txt and rejects chunking, writing for AI and extra schema. We ran a checker over our own 84 posts to see what survived.
- 19Call it optional, unproven or ignored by Google
- 4Implied it helps, all corrected on 2026-10-15
- 0Posts advising chunking, AI-specific writing, required schema or chasing inauthentic mentions, after a manual read
- 11Posts flagged by the other six rules: 11, none confirmed after a manual read; 2 of them off-topic misfires
| slug | manualVerdict | llmsMentions | otherRules |
|---|---|---|---|
| web-reading-myths-evidence-2026 | no-llms-mention | 0 | chunking |
| contractor-website-design-examples | neutral-mention | 6 | |
| aeo-services | hedged | 2 | |
| seo-for-law-firms | no-llms-mention | 0 | fan-out |
Study 03
0 of 18
Local service queries that returned an AI Overview, in both the United States and Canada
The AI Overview split.
We pulled 38 Google results pages on one day. AI search tool queries returned an AI Overview 20 out of 20 times. Local service queries returned none: 0 out of 18, in both the US and Canada.
- 20 of 20AI search tool queries that returned an AI Overview
- 17 of 18Local service queries that returned a local pack instead
- 2Categories measured on one day with opposite result architectures and no overlap
| query | market | ai_ | local_ | category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| edmonton seo | CA | no | yes | local services |
| calgary seo | CA | no | yes | local services |
| calgary web design | CA | no | yes | local services |
| edmonton web design | CA | no | yes | local services |
Study 04
51.5%
Organic results published by a company selling a tool in the category it ranks for
Who owns the AI search tools category?
We analyzed 330 results in the AI search tools category. Half of it is vendors ranking themselves.
We pulled 20 US Google SERPs across the AI search tools category and classified all 330 organic results. Every query carries an AI Overview. 51.5% of results come from vendors selling a tool in the category they rank for.
- 100%Queries in the category that carry an AI Overview
- 53.2%Share of the top ten positions held by those vendors
- 172Distinct domains across 330 results
- 66.3%Domains that appear exactly once
| domain | query | rank |
|---|---|---|
| www. | best geo tools | 2 |
| geoptie. | best geo tools | 3 |
| www. | best geo tools | 4 |
| alexbirkett. | best geo tools | 5 |
Study 05
4.2%
Calgary business homepages that block any AI crawler in robots.txt
This study has no winner ranking. Every site is listed anonymized: block posture is reported without naming the business, because blocking or not blocking is a defensible business choice either way.
The AI-blocking myth.
403 Calgary sites later, almost no one blocks AI (and the ones who do picked wrong).
We fetched robots.txt for 403 Calgary business homepages. Only 4% block any AI crawler. Most blocks target training bots, which do not stop live AI citation.
- 2%Block a live-retrieval bot, the kind that fetches a page to answer a question
- 6 sitesBlock every crawler by accident with a wildcard rule
- 70 of 403Have no robots.txt at all
- 2 of 2Popular blocking rules that do not do what the advice claims. GPTBot does not remove a site from ChatGPT answers and Google-Extended does not remove it from AI Overviews, according to each operator’s own documentation
| site_ | platform | has_ | blocks_ | blocks_ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| site-0559e741 | WordPress | true | false | false |
| site-e9afd9a5 | GoDaddy | true | false | false |
| site-2255450f | WordPress | true | false | false |
| site-39376fd0 | WordPress | true | true | false |
Study 06
72%
Calgary business homepages that ship any JSON-LD structured data
Winners (fully valid schema + LocalBusiness/Organization + sameAs, ranked by types count) are named. All other sites are hashed.
Broken schema in Calgary.
72% of Calgary sites have structured data. Only 61% told search engines they’re a business.
We parsed JSON-LD on 403 Calgary business homepages. 72% ship structured data. Only 61% marked themselves as a business. 91% skip FAQPage.
- 61%Declare a LocalBusiness or business subtype
- 15%Ship JSON-LD that only says the page is a WebPage
- 91%Have no FAQPage schema with a populated mainEntity
- 15Sites with fully valid schema, a business type and sameAs links, named in the study
| site_ | platform | schema_ | has_ | has_ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| site-0559e741 | WordPress | VALID | true | true |
| site-e9afd9a5 | custom | NONE | false | false |
| site-2255450f | WordPress | VALID | true | false |
| amptover. | WordPress | VALID | true | true |
Study 07
41%
Calgary business homepages with no tel: link, so the phone number cannot be tapped
Winners (tel + form + booking + viewport all present on homepage) are named. All other sites are hashed.
One tap to call.
41% of Calgary businesses cannot be phoned in one tap. Every dentist can. Almost no cafe can.
We parsed 403 Calgary homepages for tel: links, forms, and booking widgets. 41% cannot be phoned in one tap from mobile. Dentists lead. Cafes bottom.
- 97%Dental practices with a tappable phone number, the best vertical
- 12% to 17%Cafes and retail with a tappable phone number, the worst verticals
- 3.4%Sites that ship a booking widget
- 6Sites with a tel: link, a form, a booking widget and a viewport tag, every one of them a med-spa
| site_ | verticals | has_ | has_ | has_ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| site-0559e741 | contractors | true | true | false |
| site-e9afd9a5 | auto | false | true | false |
| site-2255450f | contractors | true | true | false |
| site-39376fd0 | contractors | true | true | false |
Study 08
50%
Calgary business homepages built on WordPress
All sites hashed; this study reports platform-level medians and percentages only.
The platform tax.
Wix vs Shopify vs WordPress vs Webflow. What each website builder actually costs a Calgary business.
We joined 5 audit datasets across 350 Calgary business homepages and cross-tabbed by builder. Every platform makes you pay somewhere. Here is exactly where.
- 100%Wix sites with valid schema, at a median 185KB of HTML and 63 scripts per homepage
- 26%Squarespace sites with a tappable phone number
- 37%Custom-built sites that ship any schema, the leanest pages in the sample
- 5Audit datasets joined per homepage, speed, schema, contact, AI access and builder
| site_ | platform | ttfb_ | script_ | schema_ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| site-0559e741 | WordPress | 220 | 24 | VALID |
| site-e9afd9a5 | GoDaddy | 248 | 6 | NONE |
| site-2255450f | WordPress | 284 | 51 | VALID |
| site-39376fd0 | WordPress | 106 | 34 | VALID |
Check our arithmetic.
Reviews of other people’s research are tagged Research on the blog. Only studies where we collected the data ourselves appear here, because those are the only ones with a corpus of ours to hand over.