Relative Discovery Score Built to be discovered
Market UKWindow Oct 25 - Sep 26Pulled 21 Oct 2026

Retirement income and equity release

vs 4 rivals

Benchmarked against Legal & General Royal London Standard Life Rothesay

Relative Discovery Score, September 2026

2.2/ 100

Down 0.4 on August. Between 0.8 and 4.7 in every month except April, when a two-day spike in social mentions lifted it to 7.3. 50 is the benchmark average and 100 the leader.

0 4 8 12 Apr 7.3, social spike 2.2 Oct 25 Apr 26 Sep 26
Found25% of the score
15.6

Counts at 60%. Just past the 15 gate, on digital channels alone: paid media share and stores both score 0.

Understood60% of the score
26.2

Counts at 60%. Between the 18 and 35 gates. The biggest pillar is being discounted.

Chosen15% of the score
33.8

Counts at 60%. Between the 20 and 40 gates. A 4.0 Trustpilot rating lifts it; 0.4% of site visits holds it back.

White ticks mark each pillar's gates: below the first a pillar counts at 40%, between them at 60%, above the second in full.

How the score is calculated: 11 signals from 8 sources

We look at how Just shows up in media spend, search engines, AI answers, online conversation, site visits, reviews and on its own site. Each signal tells us how well Just is found, understood or chosen, and those three combine into one score. Select any source to see what it measures.

Signal at or above the benchmark average Signal below the benchmark average
Methodology

How the Relative Discovery Score works

One score out of 100 for how easily a brand is found, understood and chosen, compared with a benchmark for its industry.

  1. Every signal is scored from 0 to 100.

    Each one starts in its own unit, such as a share of search or a review count. It's placed against three benchmark values for the industry: the minimum scores 0, the average 50 and the leader 100.

  2. Signals roll up into three pillars.

    Found (25% of the score): is the brand there when people start looking? Understood (60%): do people and machines read it clearly? Chosen (15%): is that turning into visits, preference and reviews?

  3. Weak pillars hold the score back.

    Each pillar has two thresholds. Below the first it counts at 40% of its weight, between them at 60%, and above the second in full.

  4. Pillars are combined in pairs, not averaged.

    A brand that is strong on one pillar and weak on another scores lower than a balanced one. That's why a score can sit well below its pillar scores, as Just's 2.2 does.

  5. Benchmarks follow the season.

    A monthly index adjusts the benchmarks, so each month is judged against that month's expectations. The brand's own figures are never adjusted.

Share of search is shown alongside the score as market context and isn't part of it.

Summary: Just scores 2.2 out of 100

Just is hard to find online. The people who do find it rate it well.

2.2 Relative Discovery Score out of 100, September 2026. Below 5 in every month except April.

The work: get more of the people researching retirement income to find Just, with a clear account of what Just does.

01

Hard to find

Against Legal & General, Royal London, Standard Life and Rothesay, Just has under 2% of every signal, where an even split would be 20% each. It also held only 0.2% of the group's measured media spend across the year.

0.6%Organic search
1.5%AI answers
0.6%Brand search
0.4%Site visits
02

Not well understood by people or AI

Search and AI answers shape how people and machines read a brand, and they carry the most weight in the score. The online conversation about Just runs negative too.

26.2Understood score, counting at 60%
-26.2Net sentiment, September
11 of 12Months below zero
03

Well rated by customers

Customers who review Just rate it 4.0, ahead of the 3.8 finance benchmark, but only 615 have left a review.

4.0Trustpilot score
3.8Finance benchmark
615Reviews

Just has less than 2% of every signal across the five brands

Each bar is 100% of one signal in September 2026, split across the five brands. Just's share is the teal segment on the left.

Paid mediaNielsen spend
L&G 34.1%Royal London 65.1%
<0.1%Just
Organic searchGoogle Search
L&G 65.2%RL 18.6%SL 15.1%
0.6%Just
AI answersGoogle AI answers
L&G 17.1%RL 37.3%SL 43.5%
1.5%Just
Brand searchGoogle Trends
L&G 22.2%RL 55.6%SL 13.8%
0.6%Just
Site visitsSimilarweb
L&G 47.6%RL 26.4%SL 24.7%
0.4%Just
JustLegal & GeneralRoyal LondonStandard LifeRothesay

How far behind the leader

For each earned signal, the leading brand's share divided by Just's. September 2026.

109xOrganic searchLegal & General 65.2% vs 0.6%
107xSite visitsLegal & General 47.6% vs 0.4%
88xBrand searchRoyal London 55.6% vs 0.6%
29xAI answersStandard Life 43.5% vs 1.5%

AI answers are the smallest gap, at 29 times behind the leader.

Monthly share of each signal, October 2025 to September 2026

Monthly share across the five brands, October 2025 to September 2026. The dashed line marks the 20% average. Use the tabs to switch signal.

Legal & General, Royal London and Standard Life lead every signal

Legal & General leads organic search and site visits, Royal London leads paid media and brand search, and Standard Life leads AI answers. Even on a log scale, which spreads small shares out, Just sits between 29 and 109 times behind the leader on every earned signal. AI answers are where it's closest.

Who owns each signal

Share of each signal, September 2026. Darker = bigger share.

Paid media
Organic search
AI answers
Brand search
Site visits
Legal & General
34.1%
65.2%
17.1%
22.2%
47.6%
Royal London
65.1%
18.6%
37.3%
55.6%
26.4%
Standard Life
<0.1%
15.1%
43.5%
13.8%
24.7%
Rothesay
0.8%
0.5%
0.6%
7.8%
0.8%
Just
<0.1%
0.6%
1.5%
0.6%
0.4%

Three brands share the five leads, and Just has the lowest or second-lowest share on all of them.

Just against the field, on a log scale

Every step right is ten times more share, so small shares stay readable.

20% average 0.001%0.01%0.1%1%10%100% Paid media 0.003% Organic search 0.6% AI answers 1.5% Brand search 0.6% Site visits 0.4%

Just has 0.2% of media spend, so almost all of its visibility is earned

Across the year Just held 0.2% of the five brands' measured media spend and 0.8% of their earned discovery. Earned discovery here is the average of each brand's share of organic search, AI answers, brand search and site visits. The rest of the market sits close to the line, buying roughly what it earns.

That makes the earned work cheaper to scale. Every gain in search and AI visibility counts in full, with no paid budget propping it up.

0.2%Just's share of measured media spend, 12 months
0.8%Just's share of earned discovery, 12 months

Paid share vs earned share, 12-month average

Log scale, so small brands stay visible. Above the line = earns more than it pays for.

0.1%1%10%100% 0.1%1%10%100% Share of paid media spend Share of earned discovery Earns what it pays for Legal & General Royal London Standard Life Rothesay Just 4x above the line

Just is rated 4.0 on Trustpilot, but online sentiment is negative

People who review Just rate it 4.0 on Trustpilot, ahead of the 3.8 finance benchmark. But only 615 have left a review, and the wider online conversation runs negative: net sentiment has been below zero in eleven of the last twelve months, with most mentions on X. Few people reach Just's own site either. Of every 1,000 visits across the five brands, Just gets 4.5.

Net sentiment by month

Brandwatch, positive minus negative
-400+40+80 April: spike on X -26.2 OctJanAprJulSep
Tone of September's mentions3,566 mentions
Negative 28.7%Neutral 68.7%Positive 2.5%
Where they were postedSeptember 2026
X 82.0%News 12.6%Forums, blogs, YouTube and reviews 5.4%
3,566mentions, Sep 2026
-26.2net sentiment, Sep 2026
11 of 12months below zero

Trustpilot

4.0/ 5 from 615 reviews

Ahead of the 3.8 finance benchmark (dashed). The leader scores 4.3. Volume is the gap: the benchmark average is 10,000 reviews.

Of every 1,000 site visits in this market

Legal & General
476
Royal London
264
Standard Life
247
Rothesay
8
Just
4.5

Similarweb visits, September 2026.

Standard Life had 5.4 million more site visits than Just over 12 months

Standard Life has the smallest site audience of the three big pension brands in this set. It still drew more visits than Just in every month on record.

55xmore visits for Standard Life than Just in September 2026: 413.9k against 7.5k.
5.4Mmore visits for Standard Life from October 2025 to September 2026. Just drew 106.6k in the same twelve months.
96xmore visits for Legal & General than Just across the year: 10.2M against 106.6k.
14.8kvisits in May 2026, Just's best month. Its lowest was December 2025, at 4.3k.

Monthly site visits, Just and Standard Life

UK website visits in thousands. The shaded band is the visits Standard Life drew that Just didn't.

JustStandard LifeThe gap

Visits are Similarweb estimates for wearejust.co.uk and standardlife.co.uk. Competitor domains cover their full product range, not retirement alone. Treat all figures as directional.

Six areas to improve, ranked by weight in the score

Ordered by weight in the score. The first three sit inside Understood, 60% of RDS. Open any card for the data and what we'd do.

Understood01

Few searches lead to Just

0.6%vs L&G 65.2%

Estimated organic visits fell 52% in a year. Build answer-led guides for the annuity and equity release searches competitors win.

Target: Standard Life's 15.1%

Understood02

AI answers seldom name Just

1.5%vs SL 43.5%

AI draws on YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and Reddit for Just. Make wearejust.co.uk the clearest source and show up where answers are sourced.

Target: Legal & General's 17.1%

Understood03

The conversation runs negative

-26.2net sentiment

Negative in eleven of twelve months. Map what's behind it, then use Digital PR and customer voice to give the conversation a better story.

Target: net sentiment above zero

Context04

Brand demand is hard to see

0.6%share of search

'Just' is an everyday word. Agree the brand terms to own and pair the name with what Just does, so search engines and AI can tell it apart.

Target: share of search rising from 0.6%

Chosen05

Interest isn't turning into visits

0.4%of site visits

The lowest in the set. Make every brand and product search land on a page built for it, for customers and advisers alike.

Target: past Rothesay's 0.8%

Chosen06

Good reviews, low visibility

4.0from 615 reviews

Invite reviews at the happiest moments and bring the rating into search results and the pages AI cites.

Target: towards 10,000 reviews at 4.0+

Understood01

Few searches lead to Just

What the data shows

  • Just takes 0.6% of the five brands' estimated organic search traffic, against a 20% competitor average. Legal & General takes 65.2%.
  • Just's share slipped from 0.8% in October 2025 to 0.6% in September 2026. Only Rothesay, on 0.5%, is lower.
  • Estimated organic visits to Just fell 52% over the year, from 21.1k to 10.2k a month. The three big pension brands fell between 34% and 43%.

What we'd do

  1. Map the annuity, equity release and retirement income searches where Legal & General, Royal London and Standard Life rank and Just doesn't.
  2. Build answer-led guides around those searches, using the calculators and retirement guides Just already has on wearejust.co.uk.
  3. Check that those pages can be crawled, indexed and linked internally, so new content can rank.
  4. Plan paid and organic search together, so paid budget covers the terms organic search can't yet win.

How we'll know it's working

Search visibility climbing from 0.6%, with Standard Life's 15.1% as the first marker.
Understood02

AI answers seldom name Just

What the data shows

  • Google AI answers mentioned Just 493 times in September 2026. They mentioned Standard Life 14,374 times, Royal London 12,313 and Legal & General 5,643.
  • Just's share has stayed between 1.1% and 1.8% all year.
  • Answers naming Just appeared on 121,760 searches in September, against 7.1M for Royal London and 3.5M for Standard Life.
  • Those answers draw on YouTube (151 mentions), Facebook (121), Wikipedia (109) and Reddit (66). Much of what AI says about Just comes from content Just doesn't own.

What we'd do

  1. Review how AI answers describe Just for annuity and equity release questions, and which brands they recommend instead.
  2. Make wearejust.co.uk the clearest source to cite: answer-led content, structured data and consistent product and company facts.
  3. Show up on the sources AI already draws on, with explainer content on YouTube, accurate company information on Wikipedia and a presence in the Reddit threads that shape answers.
  4. Track AI mentions every month, so gains and losses are caught the month they start.

How we'll know it's working

AI answer visibility climbing from 1.5% towards Legal & General's 17.1%.
Understood03

The conversation runs negative

What the data shows

  • Of 3,566 mentions in September 2026, 1,025 were negative and 90 positive.
  • Net sentiment has been below zero in eleven of twelve months, from -11.3 in August to -40.3 in December. The exception is April, when a two-day spike on X lifted it to +72.9.
  • 82% of September's mentions came from X. News made up 12.6%, peaking on 9 September with 213 articles.
  • Customers who review Just rate it 4.0 on Trustpilot, which the wider conversation doesn't reflect.

What we'd do

  1. Sort the negative mentions by theme, and separate service issues, perception and posts that aren't about Just at all.
  2. Use Digital PR to bring customer outcomes and expertise into the news coverage Just already earns.
  3. Bring customer voice into social, with the reviews and stories behind the 4.0 Trustpilot rating.
  4. Benchmark Just's conversation against Legal & General, Royal London, Standard Life and Rothesay, so progress is measured against the market.

How we'll know it's working

Net sentiment moving from -26.2 towards zero and then above it.
Context04

Brand demand is hard to see

What the data shows

  • Search interest in 'just retirement' averaged 1 on Google Trends' 0 to 100 scale in the year to September 2026. 'Royal london' averaged 88.75, 'legal and general' 35.5 and 'standard life' 22.
  • Just's share of brand search has stayed between 0.4% and 0.7% all year.
  • 'Just' on its own is an everyday word, so search engines and AI can't tell a search for the brand from any other use of it. The brand needs its category beside it to be found.

What we'd do

  1. Agree the brand terms Just wants to own, such as Just Group, Just annuities and Just equity release, and use them consistently.
  2. Make the company entity clear to search engines and AI, with organisation structured data, a consistent knowledge panel and accurate third-party profiles.
  3. Pair the name with what Just does in every campaign, so brand searches carry the category with them.
  4. Track brand search for each agreed term every month, against the four competitors.

How we'll know it's working

Share of search for Just's agreed brand terms rising from 0.6%.
Chosen05

Interest isn't turning into visits

What the data shows

  • Just got 0.4% of site visits across the five brands in September 2026, the lowest in the set. Rothesay got 0.8%.
  • Its share has ranged from 0.2% in December 2025 to 0.8% in May 2026, and hasn't reached 1% in any month.
  • Just held 0.2% of the five brands' measured media spend across the year, and under 0.1% every month since July. Royal London's rugby sponsorship alone made up 53% of September's spend.
  • Just's Nielsen advertiser lines include intermediary brand building, so part of its demand reaches it through advisers rather than its website. Customers researching on their own still need to find it.

What we'd do

  1. Find where people researching annuities and equity release end up instead: competitor sites, comparison sites and AI answers.
  2. Make every brand and product search land on a page built for it, with clear next steps for customers and for advisers.
  3. Give paid media a visit and engagement goal as well as reach.
  4. Check each month in RDS that gains in search and AI visibility turn into visits.

How we'll know it's working

Share of traffic moving past Rothesay's 0.8%, then towards 1% and beyond.
Chosen06

Good reviews, low visibility

What the data shows

  • Just scores 4.0 on Trustpilot, ahead of the 3.8 average in Journey Further's finance benchmark. The benchmark leader scores 4.3.
  • That score rests on 615 reviews. The finance benchmark average is 10,000.
  • Good reviews are proof at the moment people decide. Right now, few people searching for retirement help see them.

What we'd do

  1. Invite reviews at the moments customers are happiest, such as receiving a quote or a first payment.
  2. Bring the rating into search results and the pages AI cites, with review structured data.
  3. Use real reviews as proof in paid search, social and on product pages.
  4. Track review score and volume every month in RDS.

How we'll know it's working

Review volume growing from 615 towards the 10,000 finance benchmark average, with the score holding at 4.0 or better.

All 11 signals compared with their benchmarks

Every metric in this report for September 2026, set against Just's competitors. Each bar runs from the weakest brand in the set to the strongest.

MetricJustCompetitor averageBest in setPositionVersus average
Just, at or above average Just, below average Competitor average

Trustpilot and Brandwatch rows are compared with Journey Further's finance benchmark: average and best in set are the benchmark average and leader.