What Sits Behind the Pennsylvania Ad Index
All 152 place guides share one formula and one set of public files. This page covers what is in the index, where the data comes from, how pages get written and what the index cannot do.
Limits first
What the Index Cannot Tell You
- It counts businesses, not advertisers, and says nothing about click prices, search volumes or lead costs.
- No client account data is used.
- County figures cover the whole county, which can dwarf the town.
- ACS estimates for small boroughs can be rough.
- Businesses with no employees are not counted.
The recipe
Four Percentile Ranks, Equal Weight
| Measure | Level | Why it is included |
|---|---|---|
| County Ad Competition Index | County | Employer sites per resident in twelve ad-buying trades, set against U.S. counties |
| Ad-buying businesses per 10,000 residents | County | How tightly those trades are packed |
| Median household income | Place | Wealthier customers attract more advertisers |
| Residents per square mile | Place | More businesses within reach of one searcher |
The twelve trades: law, dentistry, medicine, real estate, insurance, accounting, roofing, plumbing and HVAC, electrical, remodeling, landscaping and auto repair.
Data and writing
Where Numbers and Words Come From
The numbers come from the Census Bureau: ACS 5-year estimates 2018-2022, 2023 population estimates, County Business Patterns 2017 and 2022, and the 2023 Gazetteer. Each place is tied to the county holding most of its residents.
The list has 122 cities and boroughs and 30 named communities. Townships are not profiled separately because the Census does not report them as places; owners in a township can read the page for the nearest named town. Borough populations are small by area but often anchor busy business districts. Local sources are recorded for each place and the page is written from that record, then checked against every other page we publish.
Next step
Question About a Number?
Write to us and we will compare it with the original Census file. Call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.