20+ years of helping the web go global.

Why this exists

Most companies build one great website and assume it travels well. It rarely does. The Report Card started as a way to put a number on that gap — to check, year after year, whether the biggest brands in the world were actually meeting the people they claimed to serve in the language and manner those people expected.

How it’s researched

Nothing here is outsourced or automated. Every tracked website is reviewed individually, every year — languages checked by hand, navigation tested across browsers and devices, and local sites visited from the point of view of the visitor they’re built for. See the Methodology page for the full scoring breakdown.

Who’s behind it

The Web Globalization Report Card is written and researched by John Yunker of Byte Level Research, a firm focused on how companies localize for global audiences online.

Since 2000, John Yunker has helped hundreds of companies improve their global content, websites and software. He authored the first book devoted to the emerging field of web globalization, Beyond Borders, as well as the most recent: Think Outside the Country (also available in Japanese).

John speaks at numerous industry events, including Localization World, Internet Retailer, and the Unicode Conference and has been quoted on global topics in publications including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He writes the popular web globalization blog Global by Design.

About Byte Level Research

Founded in 2000, Byte Level Research was the first agency devoted to website and content globalization best practices. Over the years we have helped hundreds of companies improve their global content, websites and software through our reports, consulting, speaking and training sessions.