Site Opportunity Score
A site-level directional score from movement, commercial signals, search visibility, evidence confidence, and visible build complexity. It is a ranking aid for monitored sites, not a guarantee.
Methodology
How Small Site Radar decides what is worth monitoring
Small Site Radar is built around evidence-weighted opportunity monitoring. This page explains what we count, what we do not claim, and how missing data is handled.
32
Eligible small sites
1
Sites with commercial signals
120
Keyword surfaces
0
Evidence briefs
0 low-evidence recordsEvidence first
The scoring model is intentionally cautious
Site Opportunity Score, Keyword SERP Score, Report Selection Score, and Evidence Confidence are separate. A site or keyword can look interesting while still carrying missing SERP history, unavailable traffic, stale crawl evidence, or category uncertainty. Those gaps are surfaced instead of hidden inside a single score.
Keyword SERP Score
A keyword-level SERP score from small-site presence, SERP openness, commercial intent, movement, freshness, incumbent pressure, build complexity, and evidence adjustment. It should not be directly compared with the site score.
Report Selection Score
A weekly curation score used only to decide which eligible candidates enter a frozen report. It is separate from the public site and keyword score models.
Evidence Confidence
A separate confidence score for how much evidence supports the opportunity call. Missing SERP, traffic, crawl, or category evidence lowers confidence.
Small-site Eligibility
An eligibility gate that keeps mature platforms, high-scale incumbents, and ambiguous cases out of default small-site lists.
Freshness
A data recency summary. Fresh evidence does not automatically mean the opportunity is growing.
Movement Status
A movement label derived from comparable snapshots. Rising requires a previous baseline, a current snapshot, and positive movement above conservative thresholds.
Evidence Status
A separate label derived from Evidence Confidence. Strong, Medium, Limited, and Missing evidence are never used as movement labels.
Score model versions
Every new score payload stores value, model version, calculated time, component scores, penalties, and the input snapshot id when available. Historical score movement is only treated as real movement when both snapshots share the same model version; otherwise the UI says the score was recalculated.
Site score model
2026-07-16.commercial-evidence.v2
Used for monitored site detail pages and site boards. Historical site score deltas are only shown when the previous and current snapshots use the same model version.
Keyword score model
keyword-serp-2026-06-19.v2
Used for keyword opportunity pages and weak-SERP boards. Count fields are capped so generic commercial-signal counts cannot push a keyword to 100 by themselves.
Report selection model
report-selection-2026-06-19.v1
Used inside Weekly Radar generation. It weighs evidence, quality gates, commercial signals, and de-duplication for that report snapshot.
Keyword SERP Score components
smallSitePresenceserpOpennesscommercialIntentmovementfreshnessincumbentPressurebuildComplexityevidenceAdjustment
Movement status rules
Small Site Radar keeps freshness, first observation, and true growth separate. A site or keyword is not Rising just because we saw it for the first time.
Rising
Requires previous baseline, current snapshot, and a positive delta above a conservative threshold. Site evidence includes traffic +100 or +10%, score +5, or SERP changes. Recent GitHub sources require at least +3 stars with 5% growth or 5/day, while Hacker News requires +5 points or +3 comments.
Newly observed
A current observation exists, but there is no previous comparable baseline yet. This replaces ambiguous First observation growth language.
Needs history
No current comparable observation is available, or the entity needs more snapshots before movement can be judged.
Stable / No clear movement
Comparable history exists, but movement is below thresholds or mixed across positive and negative signals.
Declining
Comparable history exists and negative movement crosses the configured threshold without offsetting positive movement.
Evidence status rules
Evidence Status is derived from Evidence Confidence and missing-data checks. It never says Rising, Declining, or Newly observed; those are Movement Status labels.
Strong evidence
Evidence Confidence is at least 70/100. This can support inspection, but it is still not a promise of traffic, rankings, or revenue.
Medium evidence
Evidence Confidence is at least 50/100 but below 70/100. Watch the next refresh before prioritizing build work.
Limited evidence
Evidence Confidence is at least 40/100 but below 50/100. Some signals exist, but the evidence is thin.
Missing evidence
Evidence Confidence is below 40/100 or unavailable. Repair SERP, traffic, crawl, category, or history evidence before relying on the signal.
Verified board gate
Verified is a public-ranking gate, not a synonym for Public-ready. A site must clear eligibility and category review, have strong Evidence Confidence, and appear in usable tracked SERP evidence. Candidates discovered through launch sources, crawl, traffic, or commercial clues remain visible in monitoring until that final SERP receipt is attached.
Opportunity action labels
Cards and detail pages translate the relevant score type, Evidence Confidence, Movement Status, and missing required evidence into an action label. Evidence below 70/100 becomes Needs evidence, not Watch. Watch means evidence is strong enough, but the opportunity score remains below the validation-candidate threshold.
Build candidate
Opportunity is at least 70/100, Evidence Confidence is at least 70/100, required SERP/crawl/category evidence is present, and Movement Status is not newly observed or declining. This means inspect and run a small validation test, not guaranteed results.
Watch
Opportunity is 55–69/100, Evidence Confidence is at least 70/100, required evidence is present, and movement is not declining. Evidence can be strong while the opportunity score remains below the validation-candidate threshold.
Needs evidence
Evidence Confidence is below 70/100, or required SERP, crawl, or category evidence is missing. A Strong evidence record only receives this label when the missing required evidence is explicitly listed.
Fresh find
A newly observed signal with Evidence Confidence at least 70/100. It can be saved, but it should not be read as proven growth until comparable history exists.
Skip for now
Opportunity is below 55/100, or Movement Status is declining after required evidence clears. Keep it low priority unless new evidence appears.
Commercial signal rules
Small Site Radar separates commercial traces from revenue claims. A detected signal can support monitoring, but it never proves how much a site earns.
Monetization signal detected
Ads, affiliate links, sponsor mentions, or other commercial traces were detected. This does not confirm a paid product or revenue.
Commercial intent likely
Pricing, upgrade, billing, plan, subscription, or trial language was detected. Treat revenue as unconfirmed.
Paid product confirmed
A payment provider, checkout path, or payment link was detected. This confirms a paid-product path, not any revenue amount.
Data sources
- Google SERP observations via configured SERP providers.
- DataForSEO organic traffic signal where available.
- Static crawler evidence from public homepages and visible links.
- Browser-render fallback for sites that need JavaScript rendering.
- RDAP registration dates where the registry returns usable data.
- Detected commercial and technology traces with confidence levels.
- Timestamped GitHub star/fork and Hacker News point/comment observations for recent source-backed discoveries.
- Weekly report validation and frozen snapshots before publishing.
Missing-data policy
- Unavailable traffic is shown as unavailable, stale, not checked, low confidence, or provider error rather than zero.
- A first valid traffic or SERP observation is labeled as Newly observed for Movement Status; it does not create Rising movement until a previous comparable baseline exists.
- A missing-to-valid or provider-error-to-valid traffic refresh starts comparable history instead of showing artificial growth.
- Rising is only shown when a current snapshot and previous baseline exist and movement crosses the configured positive threshold.
- Default public site boards prioritize domains registered within the last 6 months, or domains up to 24 months old only when true Rising movement is present. Older stable domains and missing RDAP ages stay out of the default board.
- Missing SERP evidence caps Evidence Confidence and is called out on site detail pages.
- Verified site rankings require approved eligibility and category checks, Evidence Confidence of at least 70/100, and usable SERP evidence, a strong recent trusted-source signal, or fresh threshold-crossing source momentum with a previous observation.
- Search validated, Source validated, Source corroborated, and Momentum validated describe why a site can enter the public board or qualify as an indexable research page. Momentum validation records a recent threshold-crossing source increase even when other mixed signals leave the overall Movement Status Stable. Movement Status separately describes whether comparable snapshots are Rising, Stable, Declining, Newly observed, or still need history.
- Source validation requires both recent Radar discovery and a high-scoring source item published inside the provider-specific freshness window. Rediscovering an old source item does not make it recent.
- Source corroboration requires at least 2 distinct provider families, each with source score 60+ and source quality 55+. Two Hacker News feed variants count as one family. Corroboration supports SEO research evidence but does not create Rising movement.
- Momentum validation requires a trusted provider, source score of at least 80, source quality of at least 50, a current observation within 72 hours, a previous timestamped baseline, positive threshold-crossing movement, and the same provider-specific publication window. Absolute engagement without a baseline never qualifies.
- GitHub and Hacker News engagement only contributes to Movement Status after two timestamped observations. A first source observation remains Needs history, even when its absolute engagement is high.
- Site category and opportunity category are separated. Unknown or conflicting categories are treated as review debt, not finished analysis.
- Detected commercial evidence means a payment, pricing, ad, affiliate, sponsor, or upgrade signal was found. It never confirms revenue.
Product boundaries
- We explain discovery and monitoring signals, not execution plans.
- We avoid private, login-only, paywalled, or high-frequency crawling behavior.
- Crawler evidence is bounded to public pages and recorded as evidence, not as a full website audit.
- We do not estimate exact revenue or promise exact traffic accuracy.
- Site owners can request corrections or removal at removal@smallsiteradar.com.
Data status glossary
Not checked
This source has not been queried yet.
Unavailable
The provider returned no usable value.
Provider error
The provider request failed.
First observation
First valid value; no previous comparable point exists yet.
Limited evidence
Some signals exist, but not enough for a confident score.
Awaiting SERP evidence
No valid SERP keyword snapshot is attached yet.
How to read a site detail page
Start with Opportunity, Evidence Confidence, and the action label together. A high opportunity with low evidence is a Watch or Needs evidence candidate, not a build conclusion.
Use the Verified Opportunity Brief for receipts: why now, evidence gaps, validation checks, comparable sites, and timeline.
Treat commercial, traffic, and category fields as detected signals. Follow the linked evidence before making decisions.
For the current implementation plan, see About, or browse the live boards from the main navigation.