UKFast and ANS Compared – Who Is The Biggest Hitter In The Tech Industry?

The Embryo Index takes a look at business across Greater Manchester to see who has the best visibility online and in the local area. Today, we’re taking a look at two of the local tech giants, UKFast and ANS, and how they match up. Across a wide variety of the Embryo Index’s metrics, UKFast and ANS are well-matched, though they both have their strengths and weaknesses. In this blog post, we’ll look into how they compare and see who comes out on top!

The Embryo Index Press Score is based on how much a company appears in the press. From mentions in local publications to writing and publishing press releases, your press score is all about how positively and how often your company is mentioned in the local media. Off to a great start, both UKFast and ANS have press scores of 100, showing that they’re both major players in the local media, and are pretty evenly matched when it comes to the press.

We calculate the Customer Review Score by taking data from a variety of consumer review platforms, including Trustpilot, Feefo, eKomi, and Google Reviews, taking into account both the number of reviews and their scores. Again, UKFast and ANS are tied, both with customer review scores of 64.5. While this shows that they’re both very evenly matched, this isn’t actually a brilliant score, and they can both help raise this by receiving some glowing, five-star reviews.

Our On The Street Score takes into account ‘real world’ activity, including networking, events, charity work, thought leadership, advertising and sponsorship. This helps us, and you, to see how much impact your company is having offline in and around Manchester. The UKFast team dedicated over 5,000 hours to volunteering efforts in 2018, as well as hosting their Community and Education Awards, which help to recognise and celebrate some of the unsung heroes in the Manchester community.

ANS has donated over £400,000 to charities and established the ANS Food Bank, which has given out over 400 meals. They are also outspoken about improving diversity in the technology industry, and host regular Hackathon events in the city.

As you can see, UKFast just gets the edge, with a score of 73.33 to ANS’s 66.67. However it’s worth noting that these are both really good on the street scores, recognising the great work that both companies do in and around the local area.

And now, onto the ‘techy bits’!

The Web Authority Score is based on the quality of links towards a site, page speed and the quality of on-page SEO, as well as the volume and quality of the content on the site. Using these metrics, we can establish how authoritative a site is in the eyes of search engines.

As you can see, UKFast has a much higher Web Authority Score, probably due to higher quality links (which we’ll talk about later too), the size of their site and the quality of content on their website. A web authority score of 81 is fantastic, though 40 is also not to be sniffed at! To improve their web authority score, ANS can take a look at the quality of links they’re receiving, as well as the content on their site and their on-page SEO.

Closely related to the web authority score is the Inbound Links Score, which is all about the number and quality of links to your site. Inbound links are a huge part of helping to improve your rankings and increase your web authority. A higher inbound links score will usually go hand in hand with an increased web authority score, and UKFast and ANS are no different. UKFast have an amazing inbound links score of 100, with links from The Mirror, Arch Linux and Linux Format. ANS have a score of only 30, which may also help to explain their lower web authority score too.

The Keyword Reach Score takes into account how many keywords and key phrases the companies reach and rank for on Google and other search engines. 

UKFast have a very high number of keywords and phrases that they rank for. Because of this, they will show up in higher positions in relevant searches, leading to higher volumes of traffic, views, users and sessions online.

The Web Traffic Score estimates the number of site visitors based on third party metrics. Often, if a web traffic score is lower than the keyword reach score, such as in ANS’s case, it might be because the content on your site doesn’t really resonate with your users. UKFast have a web traffic score of 100, while ANS have a score of 17.4

The Establishment Score refers to the number of very trustworthy and genuine links a site has. These often come from government websites, universities and other well-respected institutions, and are links that highly regarded by Google and other search engines, giving great value and authority to sites. 

The establishment score also links to the web authority score, as it is very difficult to get links of this quality, so when they can be found, they give a huge boost to a site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines. 

Each site’s Social Media Score ranks how well they use social media, the accounts they use, the size of their audience and how well their audience is engaged. UKFast have a social media score of 65, which leaves room for improvement, while ANS have a score of 14, showing that an increase or overhaul in how they use social media could be really good for their business. The social media score is important as when a site uses social media, Google sees this and can use it to determine how authoritative and reliable your site is.

All of these scores combine to reveal the final Embryo Index scores for UKFast and ANS. UKFast ends up with a score of 2452.67, the highest score of any company in the index! ANS have a very respectable score of 1842.07, which still puts them in the top 10 companies in the index. However, there’s still room for both companies to improve their visibility score, and their business! 

Contact us at Embryo Digital today to find out more about the Embryo Index, improve your rankings, or even get your company on the list!