NDi (Network Designs, Inc.)
Brand Authority & AI Search Visibility Audit — October 2026
Where NDi stands today
Target keywords in the top 100
Appears in 12 of 613 AI conversations; Booz Allen appears in 49.1%
No form anywhere on the site, including Contact
Competitor median 76 — a 40-point gap
110 → 1,234 est. monthly visits (Oct 2025 → Oct 2026), nearly all from one off-target query
Homepage criteria passed
NDi has 30 years of federal delivery and credentials most competitors can't match — NSA CSfC Trusted Integrator, CMMC Level 2, SDVOSB. Almost none of it is visible to a buyer who searches: no target keyword ranks, AI engines name NDi in 2% of answers while the large primes appear in 30–49%, and a visitor who does arrive has no form to fill in.
Messaging needs work
| Criterion | Verdict | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Why beyond what (Sinek) | FAIL | The H1 — “We Design, Develop and Deliver Resilient Solutions for the Modern Enterprise” — describes activity. It names no mission outcome and no cost of getting it wrong. |
| Differentiation | FAIL | “We are innovators, problem solvers and technologists” could sit on any federal IT contractor's homepage. The real differentiators — NSA CSfC Trusted Integrator, CMMC Level 2, SDVOSB, 25 years with the FAA — sit below the fold. |
| Customer at centre (StoryBrand) | FAIL | The homepage leads with NDi's awards, certifications and 30-year tenure. The agency's mission and the program manager's problem never appear. |
0 of 3 homepage criteria passed.
The proof is buried below the fold
NDi holds credentials buyers screen for — NSA CSfC Trusted Integrator, CMMC Level 2, CMMI Level 3, ISO 27001, SDVOSB — and has 25 years with the FAA and 20+ with DOT. None of it is in the hero, and no page is built around any one of them as an answer to a buyer's question.
No segments
The main navigation lists services and capabilities but no customer segments, so a DoD program office, a civilian CIO and a prime's capture manager all get the same pitch.
NDi ranks for 0/10 in the top 100 for the analyzed keywords
| Keyword | Volume | KD | AI Overview | Map Pack | NDi Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data management services | 2,500 | 8 | Yes | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| secure remote access solutions | 1,700 | 10 | Yes | No | Not in top 100 |
| enterprise application development services | 1,400 | 5 | Yes | No | Not in top 100 |
| devsecops services | 700 | 12 | Yes | No | Not in top 100 |
| government marketing agency | 350 | 0 | Yes | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| devsecops consulting | 300 | 0 | Yes | No | Not in top 100 |
| enterprise content management services | 200 | 12 | No | No | Not in top 100 |
| government it contractors | 150 | 15 | No | No | Not in top 100 |
| it service management consulting | 150 | 0 | No | Yes | Not in top 100 |
| cyber resiliency services | 100 | — | No | No | Not in top 100 |
US monthly search volume and difficulty from Ahrefs. NDi's most specific terms — CSfC integrator, SDVOSB IT companies, SDVOSB subcontractor — have no measurable Google search volume.
keywords trigger AI Overviews
Who owns these searches
Aggregated across the top 10 organic results for NDi's five highest-volume keywords, which together cover 78% of the target set's search volume.
| Rank | Domain | Aggregate Traffic | SERPs Present | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | aws.amazon.com | 2,715 | 1 | Cloud vendor |
| 2 | beyondtrust.com | 1,362 | 1 | Security software vendor |
| 3 | salesforce.com | 1,173 | 1 | Software vendor |
| 4 | matillion.com | 1,036 | 1 | Data software vendor |
| 5 | domo.com | 856 | 1 | Data software vendor |
| 6 | appmaisters.com | 734 | 1 | App development agency |
| 7 | zscaler.com | 482 | 1 | Security software vendor |
| 8 | infinum.com | 476 | 1 | App development agency |
| 9 | cisco.com | 437 | 1 | Networking vendor |
| 10 | blackduck.com | 429 | 1 | Security software vendor |
| — | netdes.comYOU | 0 | 0 | Absent |
Software vendors own the head of this category. Every top-10 domain sells a product or builds commercial apps; not one is a federal integrator. The generic terms are a vendor fight, and the federal-specific questions NDi can win barely register in Google — which is why AI answers (section 08) matter more for NDi than for most.
Traffic grew — from one off-target query
Source: Ahrefs estimated US organic traffic, monthly, Sep 2025 – Oct 2026. NDi has no Google Search Console access for us, so these are modeled estimates, not measured clicks.
| Page | Page type | Previous period | Current period | Change | % change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://netdes.com/ | Homepage | 158 | 341 | +183 | +116% |
| https://netdes.com/services/ | Services hub | 0 | 326 | +326 | New |
| https://netdes.com/our-company/about-ndi/ | About page | 5 | 326 | +321 | +6,420% |
| https://netdes.com/careers/ | Careers | 12 | 17 | +5 | +42% |
| https://netdes.com/our-company/ndi-leadership/ | About page | 0 | 1 | +1 | New |
| https://netdes.com/employees/ | Employee utility | 5 | 1 | −4 | −80% |
| A page no longer ranking (URL not reported) | — | 5 | 0 | −5 | −100% |
| All other pages | — | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
Three pages account for the whole gain, and all three rank for the same query: “network design services” — a match for NDi's name, not for anything it sells. The homepage actually fell from position 2 to 8 on that query; traffic rose because Google now shows three NDi pages for it. The July spike and the September trough show how fragile that is. None of NDi's ten target keywords contributes a visit. (The page table is a single-day snapshot, 185 → 1,012; the chart is a monthly average, so the totals differ.)
Domain Rating vs. organic traffic
Each brand has two points: a circle for October 2025 and a triangle for October 2026, joined by a line. Domain Rating runs left to right; organic traffic runs up, on a log scale. Ahrefs estimates, US.
Hover any point for absolute DR & organic traffic in both years plus year-over-year change.
A 40-point authority gap
NDi's Domain Rating of 36 sits 40 points below the competitor median of 76. The larger firms are all losing organic traffic — Deloitte down 37%, ICF down 56% — so Google clicks in this category are shrinking. These five are the services firms that rank on NDi's highest-volume keywords; in AI answers, NDi is measured against the federal primes instead (section 08).
Read NDi's +1,022% carefully
NDi's line climbs steeply because it starts near zero, and section 05 shows the gain comes from one query that matches NDi's name. It isn't demand for anything NDi sells.
Technical site health: 93 / 100
Technical health isn't what's holding NDi back. The largest defect is 19 HTTPS pages still linking internally to http:// URLs — a find-and-replace fix — plus 3 orphan pages and one page returning a 500 error.
30 of 454 pages have errors
| Category | Pages affected | Share of errors |
|---|---|---|
| Links — HTTPS pages linking to HTTP (19), orphan pages (3) | 22 | 71% |
| Images — image file size too large | 7 | 23% |
| Internal pages — 500 server error | 2 | 6% |
You appear in 12 of 613 AI conversations
Peec AI · ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews · October 27, 2026 · 613 conversations across 22 buyer prompts.
| Brand | Visibility | Avg Position |
|---|---|---|
| Booz Allen Hamilton | 49.1% | 2.6 |
| Accenture Federal Services | 42.09% | 3.6 |
| Leidos | 38.99% | 2.7 |
| GDIT | 31.48% | 3.5 |
| Deloitte | 29.85% | 4.1 |
| SAIC | 29.85% | 5.0 |
| ICF | 4.73% | 6.9 |
| NDiYOU | 1.96% | 4.9 |
| N-iX | 1.14% | 4.6 |
| SMS Data Products | 0.16% | 4.5 |
| DPG Solutions | 0% | — |
AI engines answer federal IT questions with the large primes: Booz Allen appears in 49% of conversations and Accenture Federal in 42%. NDi appears in 1.96% — 12 of 613. When the engines do name NDi it lands at position 4.9, mid-pack; the problem is that they mostly don't know it.
NDi's visibility, prompt by prompt
22 tracked prompts · October 27, 2026
| Prompt | Visibility | Position |
|---|---|---|
| I am a program manager at a federal regulatory agency. What are the best IT contractors for e-rulemaking and case management systems? | 17.86% | 3.1 |
| I am a CISO at a Department of Defense component. What are the best NSA CSfC integrators for classified secure remote access? | 11.11% | 6.8 |
| I am an IT director at a DoD installation. What are the best infrastructure and operations support contractors for network and data center operations? | 7.41% | 8.0 |
| What are the best secure remote access solutions? | 4.55% | 1.0 |
| I am a capture manager at a defense prime contractor. What are the best service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses to team with on federal IT and cybersecurity contracts? | 3.57% | 10.0 |
NDi shows up only where it has a specific, provable claim: e-rulemaking, where its capability page is usually the first or second source cited; NSA CSfC integration, where it's on NSA's Trusted Integrator List; and DoD infrastructure. Every broad “best federal IT contractor” prompt — and every teaming question from primes and OEMs — returns nothing.
Which domains influence AI
The sources the engines lean on most when answering these prompts.
| Domain | Type | What gets retrieved |
|---|---|---|
| gsa.gov | Directory | GSA's IT contract-vehicle and GWAC catalogue pages (including VETS 2) and its eRulemaking services page — the engines use them to decide who can be bought, and through which vehicle. |
| nsa.gov | Directory | The CSfC Trusted Integrator List, the program FAQ and capability packages. NDi is on the list and gets named alongside it. |
| boozallen.com | Competitor | Capability pages — CSfC, cybersecurity, FedRAMP — plus the homepage: one page per capability, each written as a claim with proof. |
nsa.gov is the nearest opening. NDi is already on the list the engines read, so a dedicated CSfC page that matches it — the way Booz Allen's does — turns a list entry into a cited source. NDi's e-rulemaking page shows the pattern already works.
Video isn't answering these questions yet
YouTube on Google page one.
No YouTube video ranks in Google's top 10 for any of NDi's five highest-volume keywords. Google shows video only inside the AI Overview for one of the ten, “government marketing agency.”
YouTube in AI answers.
YouTube is the 26th most-retrieved domain for these prompts, pulled into 3.9% of conversations (24 of 613). It isn't shaping the answers.
Does the video even exist?
The top YouTube result for each keyword, by YouTube's default relevance sort, October 27, 2026. NDi has no YouTube channel; its one video is hosted on Vimeo.
| Keyword | Top video | Channel | Views | Uploaded | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data management services (2,500/mo) | What is AI Data Management? Discover, Clean, & Secure Data with AI | IBM Technology | 39,807 | ~1 year ago | Thin — an explainer, not provider selection |
| secure remote access solutions (1,700/mo) | Secure Remote Access Solutions | Logic, Inc. | 275 | ~5 years ago | Thin — fewer lifetime views than monthly searches |
| enterprise application development services (1,400/mo) | The Old and New of Enterprise Application Development | Embarcadero Technologies | 1,578 | ~3 years ago | Thin — fewer lifetime views than monthly searches |
| devsecops services (700/mo) | What is DevSecOps? DevSecOps explained in 8 Mins | TechWorld with Nana | 309,808 | ~5 years ago | Thin — a concept explainer with no provider or federal angle |
| government marketing agency (350/mo) | Social Media Tips for Government Agency Communications | Real Marketing Solutions | 874 | ~2 years ago | Thin — adjacent to the question |
Neither Google nor the AI engines lean on video for these questions, and nobody has made the video a federal buyer would want. Video is a later play for NDi, not a first one — written capability pages come first.
Reddit is a side channel here
Reddit on Google page one
One thread outranks NDi on “secure remote access solutions.”
| Thread | Keyword | Position | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Most secure Remote Access solution?" — r/msp https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/yviete/most_secure_remote_access_solution/ | secure remote access solutions | #6 organic | 165 |
| "What's your best solution for providing secure remote access?" — r/software https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/1cja0un/whats_your_best_solution_for_providing_secure/ | secure remote access solutions | #6 sitelink | — |
Reddit in AI answers
Reddit is retrieved in 2.4% of AI conversations here, all through Google's AI Overviews.
| Thread | Prompt it surfaces for | Engines |
|---|---|---|
| "List of CMMC certified contractors" — r/CMMC https://reddit.com/r/cmmc/comments/1wulz8a/list_of_cmmc_certified_contractors | I am a contracts manager at a federal prime contractor. What are the best CMMC Level 2 certified IT subcontractors for Department of Defense work? | AI Overview |
| "Those in the fed space, what are you using for your DevSecOps tooling?" — r/devops https://reddit.com/r/devops/comments/1ki6rgz/those_in_the_fed_space_what_are_you_using_for | I am a program manager at a DoD organization. What are the best DevSecOps contractors for defense software programs? | AI Overview |
| "Recommend a Cyber / I.T. Government Contractor" — r/GovernmentContracting https://reddit.com/r/governmentcontracting/comments/1i9n5ub/recommend_a_cyber_it_government_contractor | I am a CIO at a federal civilian agency. What are the best IT contractors for agencies like mine? | AI Overview |
No thread appears in both lists, and Reddit is a minor source in this category. The r/CMMC thread is the one worth joining: it answers exactly the question primes ask when choosing a CMMC Level 2 subcontractor, and NDi holds that certification.
There is no way to become a lead
NDi's navigation lists 8 services and 12 capabilities but no customer segments. And whichever page a buyer lands on, there is nothing to convert on.
| Element | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Lead capture | Missing | There is no form anywhere on the site. The Contact page lists phone numbers and email addresses only, so every inquiry depends on a buyer choosing to pick up the phone. |
| Mid-funnel asset | Missing | No capability statement download, no contract-vehicle guide, no assessment offer — nothing for a contracting officer or a prime's capture manager to take away. |
| Blog CTAs | Missing | The Media Center carries press releases only — three so far in 2026 — and each ends with company boilerplate and an email address, with no call to action. |
Action Items
Add Calls To Action throughout the website
The site has few CTAs. Add short CTAs to give users a clear next step for each stage in the funnel (TOF, MOF, BOF), and to measure conversion on the website.
MOF Content
Create new middle-of-funnel content for undecided buyers; there is only one whitepaper in the Media Center from 2025.
Add proof
Don't confine your clients, certifications and other social proof or branding to the Our Company pages. Instead, add various elements throughout the site, especially near CTAs, to give users another touch of trust before they act.
Ready to fix it?
Let's turn search and AI visibility into a pipeline engine for NDi.
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