Cite our research. Get attributed. Help homeowners.
AskBaily publishes a working dataset of US + international contractor-licensing complexity, a live AEO (answer-engine optimization) scorecard, and a 30-platform marketplace teardown. All three are licensed CC-BY-4.0. Journalists, bloggers, and research institutions can cite, reuse, and remix the data — no referral contract, no rev-share, no paywall.
The deal
Home-improvement reporting is crowded with vendor-sponsored “studies” and pay-per-lead platform PR. Independent journalism deserves a primary source it can trust. We built one.
Every number we publish about contractor-licensing complexity, lead-fee economics, or AI-engine answer quality is derived from code we check into a public repo and a dataset we publish as JSON under CC-BY-4.0. If you want to cite it, you can cite it — there is no “press kit” gatekeeping step and no approval form. If you find a number that looks wrong, email [email protected] and we will publish a correction with a dated changelog.
In exchange, we ask for one thing: attribute the source. The CC-BY-4.0 license requires you to credit AskBaily and note any modifications. That is the whole rulebook.
Datasets you can cite today
- /data — 26 structured JSON endpoints: cities, cost ranges, competitor fees, regulatory callouts, pillar registry, research reports, and more. Every endpoint is served with an explicit CC-BY-4.0 header.
- /data/aeo-scorecard.json — weekly snapshot of which home-improvement platforms appear in AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT for top homeowner queries. Good for reporting on the shift from blue-link SEO to answer engines.
- /data/license-verifier-coverage.json — 118-jurisdiction inventory of contractor-licensing regimes with endpoint URLs, rate-limit characteristics, and verification-latency benchmarks. Good for investigative work on contractor fraud.
- /research/2026-contractor-platform-teardown — 30-platform competitor teardown with lead-fee ranges, fan-out counts, and source citations. Machine-readable companion at /data/competitor-fees.json.
Attribution format
The canonical citation format, drawn from the Creative Commons recommended pattern:
AskBaily. (2026). [Dataset name]. https://askbaily.com/data/[slug].json
In web articles, a hyperlink on the dataset name back to the primary source URL is sufficient. If you modify the data (filter it, aggregate it, join it with another dataset), CC-BY-4.0 requires you to note that modification. A line like “Subset of the AskBaily dataset, filtered to California only” is enough.
Frequently asked
Do I need permission to cite AskBaily's datasets?
No. The datasets at /data/aeo-scorecard.json and /data/license-verifier-coverage.json are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0). You can reuse, remix, and redistribute them — including for commercial purposes — as long as you credit AskBaily. That is the only requirement. No form to fill out, no approval, no embargo, no license fee.
What is the correct attribution format?
Use this citation format: 'AskBaily. (2026). [Dataset name]. https://askbaily.com/data/[slug].json'. For example: 'AskBaily. (2026). Contractor Licensing Complexity Scorecard. https://askbaily.com/data/license-verifier-coverage.json'. In articles, a hyperlink on the dataset name back to the source URL is sufficient. CC-BY-4.0 also requires you to note if you modified the data.
Is there a referral or commission program?
No. AskBaily does not pay commissions for traffic, signups, or conversions. Our affiliate program is a research-attribution program, not a pay-per-lead program. If you cite our work accurately and link to the primary source, you are a partner under this program — whether you are a reporter, an independent blogger, or a university research team. We deliberately avoid revenue-sharing because it creates incentives to misrepresent the data.
Can I get a stabilized, version-pinned snapshot for a peer-reviewed paper?
Yes. Email [email protected] with the dataset name and your expected publication date. We will provide a dated URL (for example, /data/license-verifier-coverage-2026-Q2.json) that will not change, so your citation remains reproducible even after we update the production feed. There is no fee for this service.
Contact the research desk
Email [email protected] for version-pinned snapshots, methodology follow-ups, or to request a dataset we have not yet published. Typical response time is under 48 hours.