Bahamas digital readiness: five door gaps a programme can help close

The five door gaps, and how big each is

Most Google listings the index could read are already claimed by the business: 981 of the 1,571 listings whose claim status the 2026 edition could read. The five rows below count what is still to do on the Four Digital Doors. Each row is a state a customer meets when they look the business up.

Each row counts one door state, out of its own group. One business can sit in several rows, for example an unclaimed listing that also shows no hours. So the five rows do not add up to a number of businesses.

The hours count is a later reading than the edition. Its 1,571 is a different group from the claim row’s 1,571. A registrar is the company the web address is registered with, and a host is the company that keeps the site online. The registration record is the registrar’s entry for the address, including the email its notices go to.

The website and Facebook rows describe what each address returned when the index read it. Not found means the index found no working Page in public sources, not that the business has none. The WhatsApp row is what an outside number-checking service reported about each number. The full tables are in the 2026 report.

What the counts mean for a programme

The five rows call for three kinds of work. What separates them is who else has to act once the owner starts. That decides where each row sits in a programme’s calendar.

Rows that wait on nobody. About half of the businesses reachable on WhatsApp were on a personal account. The switch needs only the phone that holds the number, so it can happen with the owner in the room. Filling in the business details takes an evening or more after that. Hours on a claimed listing are the same kind of work. But ask before treating a listing with no hours as a gap. Google’s guidelines tell some businesses, such as hotels and those that work by appointment only, not to list hours.

The row that waits on Google. More than a third of the listings whose claim status the index could read are unclaimed. Each claim waits on Google’s review once the owner starts it, and that wait runs whether anyone is working or not. So the claim belongs in a programme’s first session. The rest of the work can fill the wait.

Rows that start with a records hunt. About one in four of the businesses with a web address on record had an address that did not reach a working website. Most of those did not load at all. Some reached a coming-soon webpage or another site, which is a different fix from an address that has lapsed. For a programme, that changes the intake question. “Do you have a website?” finds the owners who have one. “Does it open your own site today?” finds the ones who need help. The same goes for a Facebook link. For both rows, the first job is finding who holds the logins, and for Facebook, whether the Facebook Page is live somewhere else. A rebuild comes later, if at all.

How long each fix really takes

Google chooses how a business verifies a listing, based on the type of business, where it is and what Google already knows about it. The options include a phone call or text, an email, a video recording or a postcard. Google says to wait up to 5 business days for its review, and that on rare occasions it takes longer. If Google sends a postcard, the code usually arrives within 14 days.

If Google asks for a video recording, it helps to know what it needs. The video must be live and unedited, at least 30 seconds long, and shot on a phone. It shows three things: where the business is or where it works, the tools, equipment or products it works with, and proof that the owner manages it. For a business that goes to its customers, such as a plumber, that last proof can be a business permit, an invoice or a utility bill in the business name.

The website is the one row where the owner’s own work can run for weeks. Putting the webpage back is an afternoon to an evening on a platform, a few evenings with a builder, or weeks with a professional. It can also depend on the registrar, the host or whoever built the site.

What slows a fix down: who holds the logins

Every row in the table needs someone to get into an account first. Four questions cover it.

Who holds the Google account? Google says only owners, or people they authorise, may verify and manage a listing. A helper, such as a friend or a marketing firm, must hand ownership to the owner when asked. The helper should be added as a manager instead. Each person uses their own Google account, so nobody has to share a password.

Who holds the web address? Someone holds the login for the registrar and for the host. For .com-type addresses, registrars send renewal notices to the email on the registration record. If that email is an old one, or belongs to a past web designer, the owner never sees the notices.

Who is an admin of the Facebook Page? Only an admin can change a Page’s username, and the username is part of the Page’s web address. When the username changes, or Facebook removes it because the Page was inactive, a link printed with the old address can stop working.

Which phone holds the WhatsApp number? The switch happens on that phone. The WhatsApp Business app takes over the same number and, after a backup, the chats. Contacts saved only inside WhatsApp do not move, so save them to the phone first.

A programme that settles these four questions before a session leaves more of the session for the fixes themselves.

The order that saves time

Claim before hours. An owner cannot set hours on a listing they do not control. A listing that is unclaimed and shows no hours starts with the claim.

Check before rebuilding. A Facebook link that fails is often a Facebook Page that moved, not a Page that is lost.

That second look is worth copying when a programme’s own intake turns up a failing link. Search Facebook for the Page by name before planning a rebuild. If the Page is there, the fix is short: update the link wherever it is printed, on the website, the Google listing, flyers and signs. The businesses the index did find on its second look may still have the old link printed in those places. That is a short fix too, and the table does not count it.

The Facebook row in the table is a different group. It counts the links the index could not match to a live Page, even on a second look. For those, start by asking the owner, who may know the Page under another name or still hold its login. Plan rebuild sessions for the links that still lead nowhere after that.

Act first on a web address the internet cannot find. For 30 of the addresses that did not reach a working website, the internet could not find the address at all. One possible cause is a registration that lapsed. A typing mistake in the address on record is another.

For .com-type addresses, ICANN, the body that sets the rules for them, says the site and email stop working up to 8 days before a lapsed name is deleted. After deletion, the holder can still restore the name for 30 days, possibly for a fee. Some registrars’ terms also let someone else register or buy the name in the weeks after it expires. So act as soon as the address stops working. The index read these addresses between February and July 2026, so for a lapsed name the restore window may already have passed, and the owner may need to register the name again, if no one else has taken it. A .bs address follows its own registry’s rules, so check with the registrar.

What a programme can do in one quarter

Google’s review and the postcard both fit well inside a quarter. So what limits a quarter is more likely to be how many owners a programme can help get into their accounts and work through each fix.

One programme elsewhere was built around that one-to-one unit. In the UK, the East Midlands Chamber reported that its year-long programme in Chesterfield reached 127 businesses in 2021 and 2022. Of those, 81 worked with one of the programme’s digital advisers. In one case the chamber describes, an adviser worked one to one with a salon owner and helped him set up his Google Business Profile. In Puerto Rico, the town of Caguas announced a programme in 2021 that began by looking up each business’s Facebook Page, website and Google listing, and said it would give each business what it found. That announcement reported no result. Between them, they show two habits worth copying: look up what each business already has, and work one to one with the owner.

To set a target, take the count in the row you choose and the number of owners your programme can sit with this quarter. The table says what each of those owners needs to bring, and who else has to act.

The index also shows where to look first. Nearly all the unclaimed listings, 549 of them, belong to businesses in the index’s Doors Opening group. These businesses have at least one door open, but not every door their trade is expected to have. That group holds most of the listings on Google, so part of this is its size. Its businesses also claim their listing less often than businesses with more doors open. That is a pattern in the data. The index does not show that one causes the other. For a programme, it means the claim row is mostly work for the broad middle of the businesses the index reads, the ones already part-way there.

Bahamian programmes already exist that these rows could sit beside. The government’s DigiLearn Bahamas programme scheduled an E-Commerce Essentials course through the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) for its Cohort 3. It was set to run from 14 September to 3 December 2026 in New Providence, Cat Island and Abaco. The course description on the DigiLearn site does not mention setting up a Google listing, a WhatsApp Business account or a Facebook Page. On 18 September 2026, Eyewitness News reported that the president of the Abaco Chamber of Commerce encouraged businesses to check whether customers can find them, make bookings and complete payments.

How to measure what closed

The index reads the same doors again at its next edition, so each row can be counted again. Between editions, an owner can ask for a fresh reading on the score webpage. A fresh reading updates the doors shown today. The 2026 edition score stays as published, because each edition is locked.

For owners: which of the five is yours

• Your Google listing is not claimed, or shows no hours. If it is not claimed, start with the claim. Then add the hours: claiming and filling in your Google listing.
• Your web address does not reach your website. Find out who holds the registration first: getting your website back.
• Your WhatsApp is a personal account. Move the same number to the business app: setting up WhatsApp Business.
• Your Facebook link does not open. Search for your Facebook Page before you build a new one: finding your Page and fixing the link.