Brands over time

Zen Internet
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

186 of Zen Internet's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2015 to 2025, measured sentence by sentence, 51 of them recovered from the Internet Archive. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 14 other mobile and broadband providers, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
186
Years covered
2015–25
Archived before ChatGPT
51
Blog · press
178 · 8

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

Zen Internet's homepage from 2000 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026zen.co.uk22 Jun 2026
Zen Internet homepage, 22 Jun 2026

Screenshot of Zen Internet’s homepage (zen.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 22 Jun 2026. © Zen Internet or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by Zen Internet.

Homepage

2026

“Which? Recommended Broadband Provider. Six years running.”

Page title

Top Rated Home & Business Broadband Providers | Zen Internet

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2008Welcome to Zen Internet
  2. 2014Check Your Broadband Availability
  3. 2018Connecting people to make life and business better
  4. 2023Still the best broadband
  5. 2025The UK's most recommended broadband provider
  6. 2026Which? Recommended Broadband Provider. Six years running.

27 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
6
12
18
Telecoms avg 13.2
6.0
15.2
17.2
17.1
16.8
14.3
14.9
11.8
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
20151 pp
2016no pages
2017no pages
2018no pages
201923 pp
202026 pp
202128 pp
202228 pp
202333 pp
202434 pp
202511 pp
2026no pages
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
20156.01
201915.223
202017.226
202117.128
202216.828
202314.333
202414.934
202511.811

Years with pages: 2015 (1), 2019 (23), 2020 (26), 2021 (28), 2022 (28), 2023 (33), 2024 (34), 2025 (11). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Before and after

2019 to Nov 2022 against 2024 to 2026

The same measures on 105 pages from before ChatGPT launched and 45 pages from 2024 on. A change here is a change in style. It does not show how any page was written: people used every one of these words and shapes long before 2022, and SGR-011 found most of the shift across brands was a trend already under way.

Measure2019 to Nov 2022 · 105 pp2024 to 2026 · 45 ppChange
Sentence length
16.714.1−15%
Sentence rhythm
0.700.73+4%
Contractions
22.120.8−6%
"You"
52%61%+10 pts
"We"
42%35%−7 pts
Questions
3.44.5+32%
Exclamations
1.312.44+86%
Long words
26%27%+2 pts
Em dashes
4.001.54−61%
AI-associated words
0.922.07+126%
AI-era marketing words
0.861.71+100%
Quieter LLM-favoured words
1.351.87+39%
AI-associated sentence shapes
0.510.29−43%
Page length
753874+16%

Each row is scaled to its own larger value, so rows compare within themselves, not with each other. Before = 2019 to Nov 2022 (105 pages); after = 2024 to 2026 (45 pages). Method: SGR-011.

04 · Against its sector

Zen Internet among mobile and broadband providers

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. Sentence length

    18% more than its sector

    15.5 against a sector average of 13.2; 3rd highest of 13.

  2. "We"

    18% more than its sector

    40% against a sector average of 34%; 5th highest of 13.

  3. Em dashes

    16% more than its sector

    3.02 against a sector average of 2.59; 4th highest of 13.

Sentence length3rd highest of 13
Zen Internet 15.5
9.716.5
ContractionsMid-table, 6th of 13
Zen Internet 20.6
12.725.2
"You"Mid-table, 7th of 13
Zen Internet 55%
30%84%
"We"5th highest of 13
Zen Internet 40%
14%57%
QuestionsMid-table, 8th of 13
Zen Internet 3.9
0.97.0
Long words4th highest of 13
Zen Internet 26%
19%31%
Em dashes4th highest of 13
Zen Internet 3.02
0.974.72
AI-associated wordsMid-table, 6th of 13
Zen Internet 1.34
0.462.88
Exclamations3rd highest of 13
Zen Internet 1.47
0.162.28
Page length4th lowest of 13
Zen Internet 779
5111,910

Pages measured: TalkTalk 74 · Hyperoptic 46 · Community Fibre 133 · SMARTY 183 · iD Mobile 49 · Lebara 0 · Lycamobile 112 · O2 138 · Zen Internet 186 · BT 9 · Sky 324 · Virgin Media 185 · Vodafone 172 · Three 141 · giffgaff 63. Measures and method: SGR-010; the brand list and sectors come from SGR-009.

05 · Vocabulary

Words Zen Internet uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

internet113.0 vs 17.8
modern26.6 vs 3.3
voice25.4 vs 3.1
fttp16.5 vs 1.0
leased17.1 vs 0.3
connections22.2 vs 3.2
connection47.2 vs 13.2
line23.9 vs 4.0
copper15.7 vs 1.6
ultrafast13.3 vs 1.4
cloud20.8 vs 4.1
Zen InternetSector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 186 pages. Checked for product names and page furniture.

06 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

2015Jun (archived by) · BlogArchived copy
“No-one likes being kept in the dark, but that’s often the case when you call 084, 087 or 118 numbers – otherwise known as service numbers.”
201910 Jul · Blog
“Fortunately, when choosing your next home broadband package, you can make absolutely certain that your connection is fast enough for reliable streaming. After all, there’s so much great TV these days, you don’t want to run the risk of falling behind.”
The minimum internet speeds for streaming video in 2019
202323 Jan · Blog
“Buyers of high-end smart devices could find their shiny new appliances losing some of their capabilities or becoming a security risk after only a few short years if manufacturers fail to provide software updates according to Which?”
January 2023 blogspot
202524 Jul · Blog
“Want to know more about the new industry switching process changes? You've come to the right place!”
One Touch Switching

07 · Every page

All 195 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 186 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (8 same text as an earlier page from this brand, 1 under 150 words of text). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

202511 pages
202434 pages
202333 pages
202228 pages
202128 pages
202026 pages
201923 pages
20151 page
In the overall numbers, no year2 pages
  • Zen Partner Newsundated · press · 511 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
  • Partner with Zenundated · press · 975 wordsNo date found: in the overall numbers, not in any year
Not measured9 pages
  • Using AI to automate your business processes25 Oct 2019 · blog · 140 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured
  • Blogby Aug 2019 · blog · 1,020 words · archivedSame text as an earlier page from this brand: only the earliest copy is measured

08 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

Zen Internet's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.