AgedCareStars — Aged Care Home Comparison (Star Ratings, Care Minutes, Fees)
Turn the government's astonishingly rich quarterly Star Ratings extract — 87 columns across 2,600 facilities, CC-BY licensed — into the per-facility and per-suburb comparison pages that the biggest aged-care directories verifiably refuse to show, in a sector with 800K+ monthly searches and six-figure decisions.
Quick Stats
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Generated | 2026-08-10 by Claude Fable 5 |
| Est. Pages | ~5,500 (2,600 facility pages + ~700 suburb/area pages + 78 planning-region pages + ~2,000 same-area comparison pages + hubs/tools) |
| Build Time | 3-4 weeks |
| Competition | 🟡 Medium — gov site takes ~80% of sector organic; big directories omit the data; caringco.com.au (2025) executes well; 3-4 thin clones |
| YMYL? | Yes — health + major financial decisions (−5 applied). Mitigation: pure data-journalism posture, per-page gov citations, methodology page, no advice |
| AI Overview Risk | 🟡 Medium — high on generic cost queries (44.1% AIO trigger rate on health YMYL), low on facility/suburb entity pages (the core) |
| Content Depth | 30+ data points/page (best case) / 6-8 (worst case, degraded template) |
| Data Sources | 4 combined (Star Ratings quarterly XLSX, ArcGIS geocoded services API, ACQSC sector performance, My Aged Care room prices) |
| Data Access | Free Gov Data (CC-BY 4.0, tested) + headless scrape for room prices |
| Revenue Model | Display ads + AFSL-adviser referrals (bridge) → provider lead-gen via BD (verified $1.4K-$3.9K/lead benchmarks) |
| Data Cost | Free |
| Est. Monthly Revenue | $1,500 (at ~60K visits) |
| Weighted Score | 57/75 (62 − 5 YMYL modifier) |
1. The Opportunity
Problem Statement
Choosing an aged care home is a rushed, emotional, six-figure decision (published RADs range $325K-$1.44M; the RAD approval threshold rose to $750K in Jan 2025). The government publishes extraordinary per-facility quality data — star ratings with four sub-ratings, registered-nurse care minutes target vs actual, pressure-injury and falls rates, compliance decisions, resident survey results — but buries it in a quarterly XLSX and a JS-heavy site whose own comparison tool is de-indexed by its own robots.txt (verified). The commercial directories families actually land on (agedcareguide.com.au, agedcare101.com.au) omit star ratings and prices entirely (verified on facility pages) because their customers are the providers being rated.
Why Now?
- The new Aged Care Act 2024 is now in force (cited in the Aug 2026 extract itself) — reforms, fee changes and quality scrutiny are driving a news cycle and family research.
- The August 2026 quarterly extract was published days ago (downloaded and parsed during research: 2,600 services, 87 columns) — 15 releases since May 2023 prove reliable quarterly cadence, enabling a rating-history archive nobody else has built.
- Sector search demand is at its highest level excluding COVID (Vine Digital SEMrush analysis: 800K+ monthly searches, ~31K keywords, average difficulty just 3.08).
- The niche was empty until ~2025; caringco.com.au now executes well — the window for a better-coverage fast-follow is open but closing.
Search Demand Evidence
Verified volumes (Vine Digital analysis, fetched): "my aged care" 51K/mo, "aged care" 19K, "aged care near me" 12K, "bupa aged care" 9.6K, "nursing home" 8K. Facility-level SERPs ("[facility] star rating / RAD") return the gov page plus 5-6 small directories — including a dated .php template farm (nursinghomes.com.au) that still ranks, proving low-DR sites rank in this vertical. 134 aged care homes sit in the Parramatta catchment alone — deep local comparison demand.
AI Overview Analysis
- Generic fee/explainer queries ("how much does aged care cost"): HIGH risk — health YMYL queries trigger AI Overviews at 44.1% vs 20.5% baseline (Ahrefs 146M-SERP study). Concede; publish benchmarks for citations.
- "[Facility name] star rating / RAD": LOW — quarterly-changing per-entity numbers; AI can't be trusted here and SERPs are entity pages.
- "aged care homes [suburb]" / "best nursing homes [city]": LOW-MEDIUM — directory intent; fresh quarterly comparison tables resist summarisation.
- RAD↔DAP calculators at the current MPIR (7.96%): near-zero AIO substitution.
2. Data Sources
| Source | Data Available | Access Method | Rate Limits | Reliability | Verified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Star Ratings quarterly extract (Aug 2026) | 2,600 services × 87 cols: overall + 4 sub-ratings; residents' survey (12 questions × 4 bands); compliance per 7 Quality Standards; RN & total care minutes target vs actual; quality measures (pressure injuries, falls, restrictive practices, polypharmacy, antipsychotics, weight loss); provider, suburb, planning region, rurality (MMM), size | XLSX download (1.7MB) | None | High | ✅ Downloaded & parsed |
| Star Ratings collection page | 15 quarterly releases May 2023 → Aug 2026 — backfillable rating history | Download per quarter | None | High | ✅ Fetched |
| Australian Aged Care Services ArcGIS API | 5,378 services: address, lat/lng, care type, residential/home-care places, provider, organisation type | Live REST API + CSV/GeoJSON bulk, CC-BY 4.0 | Generous | High | ✅ API tested (query-by-name worked; join test passed) |
| Aged Care Service List 30 Jun 2025 | Annual national + state lists incl. service-level funding data (Nov 2025 revision) | XLSX (links JS-rendered — grab via browser) | None | High | ✅ Page verified |
| My Aged Care provider profiles | Room prices (max RAD/DAP), room types — legally mandated publication | Headless-browser scrape only — pages fully client-rendered (0 facility data in raw HTML, verified); old public API dead (domain gone); no documented replacement | Throttle politely | Medium | ✅ Tested (constraint confirmed) |
| ACQSC sector performance | Quarterly regulator spreadsheets, non-compliance register | Download | None | High | ✅ Existence verified |
Data Acquisition Notes
- Aug 2026 rating distribution (computed from parsed file): 3★ = 576, 4★ = 1,659, 5★ = 155, unrated = 210. No 1-2★ services this quarter.
- License: GEN copyright page verified — downloadable material is CC-BY 4.0 with AIHW attribution; extract's own disclaimer cites Aged Care Act 2024 s541 publication immunity. Cleanest possible legal basis for the core dataset.
- Join strategy (tested): Star Ratings XLSX ↔ ArcGIS on service name + suburb ("Margery Cole Residential Care Service" matched → address, 120 places, coordinates).
- Room prices: no bulk dataset exists anywhere — headless Playwright crawl of ~2,600 profile pages, quarterly. Small competitors (agedcarequickstart, caringco) demonstrably already do this. robots.txt: profile pages are indexable/crawlable; only compare/search-results paths are disallowed.
- data.gov.au CKAN endpoint moved to
/data/api/3/action/package_search(old path 404s — site rebuilt on Drupal 11).
Enrichment Source Map (from Phase 4h)
PRIMARY SOURCE: Star Ratings quarterly XLSX → ~40 usable fields/facility (ratings, staffing, quality, survey, compliance)
├── ENRICHMENT 1: ArcGIS services API → address, lat/lng, places, org type (join: name + suburb)
├── ENRICHMENT 2: My Aged Care scrape → room types, max RAD/DAP prices (join: service name/ID)
├── ENRICHMENT 3: 14 archived quarterly extracts → rating history time-series (join: service name)
└── TOTAL: 30+ unique data points per facility page + history charts
Why these sources prevent thin pages: A facility page shows what no competitor combines — official stars with all four sub-ratings, whether staffing actually meets targets (54 RN minutes actual vs 41 target), falls/pressure-injury rates vs sector averages, room prices, and how the rating moved across 15 quarters. The directories with authority verifiably refuse to show this (their customers are the providers).
Data Coverage Gaps
- 210/2,600 services (8.1%) unrated (mostly Multi-Purpose Services and new services — e.g. Waroona MPS, Charleville QLD: name/location shell only); 95 missing care-minute actuals, 121 missing survey data. → ~92% of pages fully rich; unrated services get a degraded "not yet star-rated" template (still 6-8 fields from ArcGIS + service list + explainer).
- Room prices exist only via scrape — pages render fully without them; prices slot in as they're collected.
- Home care providers (in ArcGIS but not star-rated) — phase 2 expansion, not launch scope.
3. Page Architecture
URL Patterns & Scale
| Pattern | Template | Example URL | Est. Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facility | /home/[slug]/ | /home/margery-cole-residential-care-traralgon/ | 2,600 |
| Suburb/area | /aged-care/[suburb-or-area]-[state]/ | /aged-care/traralgon-vic/ | ~700 (aggregated where sparse) |
| Planning region | /region/[region]/ | /region/gippsland/ | 78 |
| Comparison | /compare/[a]-vs-[b]/ | same-area pairs, both rated | ~2,000 |
| Rankings | /best/[city-or-region]/ + /5-star-homes/[state]/ | /5-star-homes/vic/ | ~60 |
| Tools | /rad-dap-calculator/, /care-minutes-explained/ | /rad-dap-calculator/ | ~10 |
| Changelog | /rating-changes/[quarter]/ | /rating-changes/august-2026/ | 4/year |
Page Template Structure
/home/margery-cole-residential-care-traralgon/
├── H1: Margery Cole Residential Care Service — Star Rating, Care Minutes & Fees
├── Hero: overall stars + 4 sub-ratings, places, provider, map
├── Section 1: Staffing — RN/total care minutes actual vs target (vs sector avg)
├── Section 2: Quality measures table (falls, pressure injuries, etc. vs national)
├── Section 3: Residents' experience survey results
├── Section 4: Rooms & prices (RAD/DAP) + RAD↔DAP calculator embed
├── Section 5: Rating history chart (15 quarters) + compliance record
├── Section 6: Nearby homes comparison table (internal links)
├── Sidebar: adviser-referral CTA + ad
└── Footer: "Source: Dept of Health, Disability and Ageing Star Ratings extract, Aug 2026 (CC-BY 4.0)" + methodology link
Sample Page with REAL Data (from Content Depth Gate 4g)
URL: /home/margery-cole-residential-care-traralgon/
Title: Margery Cole Residential Care (Traralgon): 5-Star Rated, Fees & Care Minutes | AgedCareStars
H1: Margery Cole Residential Care Service, Traralgon VIC
Data points displayed (all REAL, from the parsed Aug-2026 extract + tested joins):
| # | Data Point | Value (REAL) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Overall Star Rating | 5 stars (one of only 155 nationally) | Star Ratings extract |
| 2 | Residents' Experience | 4 stars | Extract |
| 3 | Compliance | 5 stars | Extract |
| 4 | Staffing | 5 stars | Extract |
| 5 | Quality Measures | 4 stars | Extract |
| 6 | RN care minutes | 54 actual vs 41 target (+32%) | Extract |
| 7 | Total care minutes | 221 actual vs 197 target | Extract |
| 8 | Falls / major-injury falls | 50 / 4 | Extract |
| 9 | Pressure injuries / antipsychotic use | 0 / 0 | Extract |
| 10 | Polypharmacy / weight loss | 36 / 5 | Extract |
| 11 | Provider | Yallambee Traralgon Village For The Aged Inc (NFP, community-based) | Extract |
| 12 | Places | 120 residential places | ArcGIS API (join tested) |
| 13 | Location | Matthews Cres, Traralgon (-38.196, 146.549) — Gippsland region, MM3 large rural town | ArcGIS + extract |
| 14 | Max room price | RAD $480,000 / DAP $110.73 (5 room types $450K-$600K per cross-source) | My Aged Care via scrape |
| 15 | Rating history | 15-quarter trend chart | Archived extracts |
| 16+ | Survey detail (12 questions × bands), compliance audit dates, size class | per extract | Extract |
Unique narrative content (~300 words): "Margery Cole is one of just 155 aged care homes in Australia holding a 5-star overall rating in the August 2026 data. Its registered-nurse coverage runs 32% above its government target — 54 minutes per resident per day against a target of 41 — placing it in the top tier of Gippsland facilities… Maximum published room price is a $480,000 RAD (or $110.73/day DAP at the current 7.96% MPIR)…" — every figure entity-specific and computed.
Interactive elements: - RAD↔DAP calculator at current MPIR - Nearby-homes sortable comparison table; rating-history chart
Internal Links: - 5-8 nearby facilities, Traralgon area page, Gippsland region page, provider page, quarterly changelog
Worst-Case Page (Sparse Entity)
URL: /home/waroona-multipurpose-centre-charleville/ (unrated MPS, MM7 very remote — verified worst case in data)
| # | Data Point | Value (REAL) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name + address + map | Waroona MPS, Charleville QLD | ArcGIS |
| 2 | Provider | South West Hospital and Health Service (Government) | Extract |
| 3 | Type/size | Multi-Purpose Service, Small, MM7 very remote | Extract |
| 4 | Rating status | "MPS facilities are not star-rated — here's why" explainer | Extract + editorial |
| 5 | Places | from ArcGIS/service list | ArcGIS |
| 6 | Region context | services within 200km, regional stats | Computed |
| 7 | Funding context | service-level funding (Nov 2025 service list) | Service list |
Thin page strategy: The 210 unrated services (8.1%) get the degraded template above (6-8 points + explainer — genuinely useful for remote families with no alternatives). Suburbs with <3 facilities aggregate into area pages. Comparison pages generated only where both facilities are rated.
4. Competitor Analysis
Top 5 Competitors
| # | Competitor | Domain | Monthly Traffic | DR | Indexed Pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | My Aged Care (gov) | myagedcare.gov.au | ~80.4% of sector organic share (Vine Digital SEMrush analysis) | 90+ | Full profiles — but compare tool de-indexed by own robots.txt |
| 2 | Aged Care Guide (DPS) | agedcareguide.com.au | ~116K/mo (bring.au estimate, unverified) | 60+ | Large directory — omits ratings & prices (verified) |
| 3 | CaringCo | caringco.com.au | Unknown (new, ~2025) | Low | Strongest rival: per-room RAD/DAP "updated 8 Aug 2026", care minutes, own 9.4/10 score |
| 4 | Aged Care Quick Start | agedcarequickstart.com.au | Unknown | Low | Shows official stars + sub-ratings (May 2026) + RAD/DAP; thin design, no care minutes |
| 5 | agedcare101 / template-farm network (nursinghomes.com.au etc.) | various | Unknown | Low | Rank for facility/price queries with dated .php pages — SERP softness evidence |
Traffic estimated via: Vine Digital SEMrush sector analysis (fetched), bring.au, SERP observation.
Detailed Competitor Breakdown
My Aged Care (the gov incumbent)
- What they do well: Authority, complete data, 80% organic share, head terms locked.
- Where they fail: Fully client-rendered profiles; its own comparison UX is disallowed in robots.txt (verified —
/find-a-provider/comparede-indexed); no suburb ranking pages; no rating history; overwhelming for stressed families. - Your advantage: You are the indexable, comparable, historical layer the government structurally won't build.
Aged Care Guide (DPS) + agedcare101
- What they do well: Brand age, directory breadth, provider relationships (Premium/Platinum tiers, sponsor logos).
- Where they fail: Facility pages omit star ratings and room prices entirely (verified on multiple pages) — their paying customers are the facilities; independence is structurally impossible.
- Your advantage: Publish exactly what they can't: ratings, staffing shortfalls, price comparisons.
CaringCo (the real fight)
- What they do well: Fresh per-room pricing (Aug 2026), care minutes, clean UX — proof the model works.
- Where they fail: Converts official stars into an opaque 9.4/10 score; suburb pages don't show per-facility stars inline; availability buttons without data; coverage depth unproven.
- Your advantage: 100% coverage (all 2,600), official-rating transparency (not a black-box score), 15-quarter history archive, quarterly changelog content.
Gap Analysis Summary
| Gap Type | What's Missing | Your Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Data | Ratings+prices+care minutes in ONE place at full coverage | All 2,600 facilities, every field |
| Data | Rating history | 15 archived quarterly extracts → time-series (backfillable — rare!) |
| Features | Suburb comparison tables with official stars inline | Core page type |
| Content | Quarterly "who changed" analysis | /rating-changes/ changelog each release — unique, newsworthy, AI-proof |
5. Your Unique Positioning
The Angle
The independent data layer for choosing aged care: every facility's official star ratings, whether its staffing actually meets government targets, its safety record, its real room prices, and how it's trending — published transparently from CC-BY government data, with no provider pay-to-play.
Competitive Moat
Unusual for this playbook: the rating history is backfillable (15 quarterly extracts are archived publicly) — build the time-series on day one, then the quarterly changelog cadence + full coverage + independence positioning compound. Incumbent directories can't copy without torching their provider revenue model.
Positioning Statement
For families making a rushed six-figure aged-care decision, AgedCareStars is the comparison site that shows official star ratings, staffing performance and real prices for every home in Australia, unlike agedcareguide and agedcare101 which hide ratings because facilities are their paying customers.
6. Monetization Strategy
| Channel | How It Works | Revenue/Unit | Est. Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display ads (floor) | AdSense → premium network | $12-25 RPM (older-demographic finance-adjacent traffic is valuable) | $700 |
| AFSL adviser referrals | Refer users to licensed aged-care financial advisers (lawful with disclosure — CPA guidance verified: referral ≠ advice) | Direct arrangements, ~$50-150/qualified referral (negotiated) | $400 |
| Provider lead-gen (BD phase) | Placement intro fees benchmark: $1,389-$3,915/signed client (Aged Care Choices verified rates, home care) or ~8 bed-days revenue ≈ $2.5-3.5K residential (Aged Care Decisions model) — publisher access requires direct BD | High per unit | $400 (from month 6+) |
Revenue Assumptions
- Traffic: ~60K visits/month at month 12 (facility + suburb entity queries)
- Lead-gen is the endgame but needs BD — launch on ads + adviser referrals as the bridge
- No public third-party publisher payout program found at CareAbout/Aged Care Decisions (flagged) — the verified Aged Care Choices partner rates prove provider willingness-to-pay
Affiliate/Partner Opportunities
- Aged Care Choices partner program — verified per-signed-client fees ($1,389 L1 → $3,915 L4 incl GST)
- Licensed aged-care financial advisers — direct referral agreements (disclosure required)
- Provider "verified profile" claims (free) → enquiry routing (paid) later
Licensing & Regulatory Check
- Core data CC-BY 4.0 (GEN copyright page verified) — attribute AIHW/DoHDA. Cleanest licence position of all five ideas.
- AFSL: aged-care fee advice is a licensed activity. The site must publish factual/general information only; calculators labelled general-information; paid referrals TO licensees are lawful with disclosure (CPA Australia guidance verified). No personal advice, ever.
- ACL: accuracy + currency (quarterly data dates on every page); enquiry forms → Privacy Act/APPs compliance.
7. Technical Implementation
Recommended Stack
- Framework: Astro (static) with chart/calculator islands — ~5,500 pages
- Database: SQLite (extract ETL + ArcGIS sync + price scrape + 15-quarter history)
- Hosting: Cloudflare Pages
- Scraping: Playwright (headless) for My Aged Care room prices, quarterly, throttled
- Est. Monthly Cost: $0-10
Key Technical Decisions
- Static vs Dynamic: SSG, rebuilt quarterly on extract release (+ interim fixes) — the data cadence is quarterly, perfect for static.
- History backfill: ingest all 15 archived extracts at build #1 → launch WITH the time-series moat.
- Room-price scrape: quarterly Playwright run over ~2,600 profiles; graceful absence (pages full without prices).
API/Data Integration
1. Quarterly (on release): download Star Ratings XLSX → parse 3 sheets → upsert 87 fields/facility
2. One-off: backfill 15 archived extracts → rating history tables
3. Monthly: ArcGIS FeatureServer sync (addresses, places, geometry)
4. Quarterly: Playwright crawl My Aged Care profiles → room prices (RAD/DAP, room types)
5. Annual: Aged Care Service List (funding data)
6. Compute: sector/region averages, staffing-vs-target deltas, rating changes → changelog
7. Astro build → Cloudflare Pages
Indexing Strategy
- Sitemaps: facilities / areas / comparisons / hubs
- Internal linking: area ↔ facilities ↔ nearby comparisons; changelog links every changed facility (fresh internal-link pulse each quarter); provider pages link portfolios
- Crawl budget: facilities + areas priority; comparisons secondary
8. Launch Checklist
Week 1: Foundation
- [ ] Domain + Astro + Cloudflare Pages
- [ ] Aug-2026 extract ETL (87 cols) + 15-quarter backfill
- [ ] ArcGIS join (name+suburb, manual review queue for fuzzy matches)
- [ ] Methodology + "how star ratings work" pages (E-E-A-T spine)
Week 2: Scale
- [ ] All facility + area + region pages; sector-average computations
- [ ] RAD↔DAP calculator (MPIR 7.96%, general-information labelled)
- [ ] Schema markup (LocalBusiness/MedicalOrganization variants + Dataset), sitemaps, GSC
Week 3: Depth
- [ ] Playwright room-price crawl #1
- [ ] Comparison pages + rankings + first /rating-changes/august-2026/ analysis
- [ ] Adviser referral arrangements (2-3 licensed advisers, disclosure copy)
Week 4: Launch
- [ ] Launch data story: "Only 155 of Australia's 2,600 aged care homes rate 5 stars — the full list" → aged-care and general press
- [ ] Ads live; monitor indexing; BD outreach shortlist for lead-gen phase
9. Risks & Mitigations
| Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|---|
| YMYL/E-E-A-T ceiling for a new site | Medium | High | Data-not-advice posture; per-page gov citations + CC-BY attribution; methodology transparency; precedent verified (low-DR data sites rank in this exact vertical; bettereducation in education YMYL) |
| CaringCo consolidates the niche first | Medium | High | Ship with 100% coverage + history + official-rating transparency (their black-box score is attackable); quarterly changelog = recurring differentiation |
| My Aged Care blocks price scraping | Medium | Medium | Prices are additive, not structural; provider-submitted prices fallback; pages fully rich without them |
| Extract format/cadence changes | Low | Medium | 15 stable releases; schema-test ETL; GEN/data.gov.au mirrors |
| Google prefers gov for ambiguous queries | High | Medium | Target comparison/suburb/history intents the gov site doesn't serve (its compare tool is literally de-indexed) |
Data Source Risks
- Aged Care Act 2024 reforms may restructure ratings — that's a content opportunity (changelog) as much as a risk.
Competitive Risks
- Incumbent directories adding ratings would cannibalise their provider revenue — structurally unlikely; watch CaringCo instead.
Google Algorithm Risks
- Helpful Content: 30+ real data points + computed analysis per page — strong pass. Degraded template for the 8.1% unrated is still genuinely useful.
- AI Overviews: entity/comparison core is resilient; generic cost content conceded.
Thin Content Risk Assessment
| Metric | This Site | Safe Threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data points per page (best case) | 30+ | ≥ 8 | ✅ |
| Data points per page (worst case) | 6-8 (unrated MPS template) | ≥ 5 | ✅ |
| Unique words per page (avg) | 300+ | ≥ 200 | ✅ |
| Data sources combined | 4 | ≥ 2 | ✅ |
| Pages below threshold (est. %) | ~8% (unrated services — degraded but useful template) | < 20% | ✅ |
| Thin page strategy | Degraded template + area aggregation + conditional comparisons | Must have one | ✅ |
10. Legal & Compliance (AU-specific)
| Area | Requirement | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Copyright | Star Ratings/GEN data CC-BY 4.0 (verified); ArcGIS CC-BY 4.0 (verified) | Attribute AIHW/DoHDA on every page |
| AFSL | No aged-care fee advice without licence | General information only; calculators labelled; referrals to licensees with disclosure (CPA guidance verified) |
| ACCC / ACL | Comparisons must not mislead | Methodology page, data dates, no cherry-picking; show ALL facilities not just advertisers |
| Defamation-adjacent | Low ratings are government-published facts | Verbatim republication + source + s541 publication basis noted |
| Privacy Act 1988 | Enquiry/referral forms collect sensitive family situations | Privacy policy, APPs, minimal collection |
| Scraping | My Aged Care robots.txt permits profile pages | Throttled quarterly crawl, honest UA |
Domain Name Suggestions (with availability check)
| Domain | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| agedcarestars.com.au | Likely Available | Exact concept match — top pick |
| carestars.com.au | Likely Available | Shorter, expandable to home care/NDIS |
| careindex.com.au | Likely Available | Data-first brand |
| starsofcare.com.au | Likely Available | Alternative phrasing |
Availability checked via DNS (NS/SOA) on 2026-08-10. Confirm at registrar before purchasing. (careratings, agedcarecompare, carescope, careatlas, homestars, agedcareindex, starcare, carebeacon: all taken — this space is being claimed; move fast on the name.)
11. Post-Launch Strategy (Months 2-12)
Content Maintenance
- Refresh cadence: quarterly extract (the heartbeat — each release triggers rebuild + changelog analysis + press cycle); monthly ArcGIS sync; quarterly price crawl
- Stale detection: facilities missing from new extracts (closures) → archived respectfully with notice
- New pages: new services auto-appear; quarterly changelog pages compound
Monitoring
- GSC weekly; 100 seed keywords across {facility brand, suburb, "star rating", RAD/price} classes; CWV monthly
- Watch CaringCo feature releases; watch Aged Care Act reform announcements (content triggers)
Expansion Playbook
- Adjacent niches: Home Care Package provider comparison (same ArcGIS data, huge demand, same audience earlier in journey), retirement villages, respite care finder
- Content layer: quarterly "State of Aged Care Quality" report from each extract — the citable sector analysis
- Link building: quarterly data stories (ratings changes, staffing shortfall analysis) to health/consumer press; seniors' organisations resource pages
12. Success Metrics
| Timeframe | Traffic Goal | Revenue Goal | Key Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month 3 | 8K visits | $100 | 80% indexed; first quarterly changelog published (Nov 2026 extract) |
| Month 6 | 25K visits | $500 | Adviser referrals live; first press citation; BD conversations started |
| Month 12 | 60K visits | $1,500 | Top-10 for 300+ facility/suburb terms; first provider lead-gen deal |
Leading Indicators
- Facility pages outranking template-farm directories (target: 500+ queries)
- Changelog pages earning links each quarter (target: 5+ referring domains/quarter)
- Adviser referral conversion (target: 10+/month by month 9)
Sources & References
- Star Ratings quarterly extract Aug 2026 — core dataset (downloaded & parsed: 2,600 × 87)
- Star Ratings collection (15 releases) — history backfill
- Australian Aged Care Services ArcGIS — 5,378 geocoded services (API tested, CC-BY 4.0)
- GEN aged care data copyright — CC-BY 4.0 licence verification
- Aged Care Service List 30 Jun 2025 — funding data
- My Aged Care find-a-provider — room prices (client-rendered; scrape constraint verified)
- Room price publication policy — mandated disclosure basis
- ACQSC sector performance — regulator data
- Vine Digital aged care search analysis — verified demand volumes
- Aged Care Guide — Margery Cole — incumbent omits ratings (verified)
- CaringCo — Margery Cole — rival analysis
- Aged Care Quick Start profile — clone competitor
- Aged Care Choices partner rates — verified lead economics ($1,389-$3,915)
- Aged Care Decisions FAQ — placement-fee model (~8 bed-days)
- CPA aged care advice guidance — AFSL referral position
- Search Engine Land: AI Overviews & YMYL — 44.1% AIO trigger rate on health
- Mirus: rising RAD prices 2025 — market context