When an assistant books a table, it takes whatever path works. If the only path on your site is a button to a reservation marketplace, that is where it goes, and you pay per cover. A direct path on your own domain gives it a better option. You can keep the marketplace too.
yourbusiness.com/book, linked from the homepage with the word Book, Reserve, Reservas, Réserver or Reservieren.
Fields it can fill, not a phone number and not a chat widget. The action test on this site opens the page in a browser and looks for exactly these.
An account requirement stops most agents at the door.
A confirmation page or email with the booking details.
| Option | How it works | Actionable points of 30 |
|---|---|---|
| Booking software embedded on your own domain | A widget from a reservation vendor on your page, or a vendor page under your domain. The guest stays yours, no commission per cover on most plans. | up to 25 |
| Your own form | A simple request form with date, time, party size, confirmed by email by you. Works for small places with no software. | up to 30 |
| A vendor page on the vendor's domain | A link to the vendor's hosted page. Fine, scores a little less because the path leaves your site. | up to 25 |
| Marketplace only | Reservation marketplaces that charge per cover and keep the guest's data. | 3 |
| Phone or WhatsApp only | Agents cannot act on these yet. | 2 |
The first 15 points are for the channel, the next 15 for the browser action test reaching the step before confirmation. The methodology has the table.
| Where your site is built | Where the setting lives, October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Wix | Wix Restaurants Reservations or Wix Bookings, on your own pages. |
| Squarespace | Acuity Scheduling embeds on your page; restaurant-specific vendors embed as a block. |
| WordPress | Most reservation vendors have a plugin or an embed code; your own form with a forms plugin also counts. |
| Shopify | An appointment or reservation app from the app store, rendered on your domain. |
Dashboards move things around. If a name here does not match, search the dashboard for the word in bold.
This is not about leaving marketplaces. Many owners keep the listing for the people who look there, and add the direct path for the people, and now the agents, who come to the site. The score only measures whether a direct path exists and works.
Want to know what your booking page looks like to an agent? Run the free scanner on your address: the report names each crawler that was refused, what it found for the menu, the structured data and the booking path, and what to fix first. Rescans are free.
Updated 2026-10-14. Dashboard names are as of that date.